For this reason I’ve decided to dispense with the seemingly obligatory sensitivity reader in favour of something more congenial: The Sympathy Reader. You might like to try it yourself. The brief? Read the book. Or not. Works either way. Say something suitably gushy. You could even leave the gush to me and just add your name at the end. Simple.
Here’s an example from a Guardian journalist known, nay, revered for his progressive radicalism. ‘In the Madness of Time is so beautifully written, so hilariously funny, so – what’s the word? – zeitgeisty, it made me wish I was on the wrong side of history too.’
A light comedy for dark times, In the Madness of Time
is set at the Edinburgh Festival. It involves a leading
Antipodean feminist whose books keep getting suppressed,
a cross-generational doppelgänger,
a children's show sponsored by Pharmaceuticals-R-Us,
über-radical Qwe(e)rtyuiop Books,
an icon of American letters who likes to shoot food off his (ex) wives' heads,
a super-successful narcissist with an interesting double-life,
a narrator who is always several pages behind the action.
Oh, and Blaise.
"The female characters are so well realised,
a woman couldn't possibly have written it"*
The Three Aunts
*Not necessarily the full quote
Available now from Books Unbridled:
Buy In the Madness of Time Here
In the Madness of Time was published by Gnarled Tree Press in summer 2024
'Let history judge'