Bloody Fields

 

Back in 2013 I wrote about my old comrade David Rickerby’s crowdsourcing campaign. Unfortunately, raising funds was the easy part and publishing his first novel seems to have been beset on most sides by shitweasels who overstated their worth then ran for the hills after making a pig’s ear of things. For crippling the copy, delaying the release and tormenting an old man, these blundering halfwits deserve an obscene amount of libellous character assassination.

Now’s not the time though. I mean when you’re a natural at something it doesn’t look like improvisation which is why I’ve never been much for premeditation when setting out to offend a whole bunch of people. That being said, there’s no harm in checking first how many of them will be falling over themselves to get me in a firm headlock and stab me in the eyes with their keys.

Anyway, this was supposed to be a celebration. The revised Bloody Fields is done and damn well dusted. Hip hip . . . !

Local rag Århus Stiftstidende gave the first edition five stars out of six saying: ‘Rickerby’s misanthropic road thriller is a thoroughly successful reading experience,’ and calling it, ‘A true road novel.’ High praise for a printing that hadn’t been given even the most cursory spelling and grammar check prior to running off something like eight hundred copies; but what do I know, eh?

As I was making the eBook anyway I offered to edit it myself since I was already driving myself mad revising a ten-year-old book of my own set in part on the same Danish island and inspired by many of the same people—albeit with wildly different instruments of wish fulfilment. A cover was also needed so I did that too. It would be vulgar to call myself a hero but then I’m a vulgar man.

David did offer to pay me but I declined and though he didn’t pursue the matter the tears in his eyes when he called me, ‘A fucking saint,’ were remuneration enough. Besides, what’s crippling credit card debt when working pro bono makes me feel like Matthew McConaughey in A Time to Kill for once instead of Nicolas Cage in Leaving Las Vegas.

Right, that’s the gin gone. I’ll be off then.

Bloody Fields is available now on Kindle. A print version will follow.

Along with news, reviews and interviews, signed first editions are available via the Facebook page—and with civilisation on the brink of collapse you’ll be glad of a treasure like that when bartering with cannibals for your child’s insulin.