Stickleback

Alan Siddall, a young 68-year-old Black Sabbath fan who wears shades from dusk till dawn, has outstayed his welcome at his local Mental Health Unit. He's about to be shipped off to Willowbeck Gardens to see out the rest of his troubled days. But when he bumps into Cassandra, "the one that got away" years ago before his disastrous marriage to Babs, Alan refuses to go gently into residential care. He wants Cassandra back.

At the heart of this angry, moving and often hilarious novel is the message that, however hard it is to live in this world, hope will always survive.

"Connors is the P.G. Wodehouse of the working class, almost every sentence an elegant expression of comic vulgarity." John Lake (author, Amy and the Fox)

"The characters written by Mark Connors never drop a note." Barrie Sherwood (author, Escape from Amsterdam)

Mark Connors is an award winning writer from Horsforth, Leeds. He has won prizes and received commendations at various Literature Festivals. His poetry and short fiction has been published widely in the UK and overseas. Stickleback is his first novel.

"Though far removed in tone, Stickleback has all the pathos of Emma Healey's Elizabeth is Missing in its first-person-narrative depiction of mental health issues. Alan, the protagonist, "a young 68" and institutionalised, an ardent Black Sabbath fan always clad in shades and a leather jacket, is a rebel from the same mould as McMurphy in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, and his foul-mouthed, ribald protest against the system is packed with great one-liners that had me cackling. But it's his seemingly insurmountable quest to reconnect with Cassandra, "the one that got away", that gives this angry, funny and moving novel its real heart, the message that, however hard it is to live in this world, hope will always survive. Connors is the P.G. Wodehouse of the lower classes, every sentence an elegant expression of comic vulgarity." John Lake (author, Leeds 6 Trilogy, Amy and the Fox)