I Want Everything
by Dominic Amerena
Summit Books
Writer’s block is a terrible thing. The aspiring writer remembered what it felt like to enjoy writing – but that was long past. What made it worse was that his girlfriend Ruth was surging ahead with her writing career, and he hadn’t even been as successful as her in the first place.
At least he was able to swim away his frustrations and return home in a better frame of mind. That is when he had a random sighting at his local Melbourne swimming pool – of an elderly woman getting into a minibus from a local nursing home.
After taking a photo of the woman from a distance, he raced home to check the cover of one of his favourite books by Brenda Sales. The novelist had written two highly successful and controversial books on the 1970s and then disappeared.
Had he caught sight of the recluse who never gave an interview and had been out of the public view for the last fifty years? He decided to track her down to get her story and write about it. But he was unprepared for the turn of events that led to him being mistaken for Brenda’s grandson.
“Some men are born liars and some have lying thrust upon them.” It was just a small deception that had the potential to grant all his wishes of being a recognised writer, and the deception faded from his mind when Brenda asked him to visit again.
Tension builds in this spiraling tale of deceit. The aspiring writer is continually in danger of being found out and also has the dilemma of what to do with all the information he has been given about what inspired Brenda’s books.
Everyone has a story, but who actually owns these stories? If you tell someone your story can they write a fictional book or make a film about it without your permission? And if a story is obtained by deceit, how culpable is the aspiring author?
As the aspiring writer and his friends debate the ethics of his situation, they are hit with a killer twist that will leave everyone gasping.
Lezly Herbert
