Mark Cunnington
The Fear is my eighth novel and will be out in paperback on 28th July this year. There will also be an eBook version for Kindle available on Amazon. For readers who would like a taster of the book go to www.triopublishing.co.ukwhere the first section is available to read for free. You’ll also find my new blog there.
Please tell us about the character of John Alfred Dennett.
John Alfred Dennett, the voice of the book, is a character haunted by events from the past. Influenced by the negativity of his traumatised mother and the contrasting positivity of his father and grandfather, John choses to embrace the male view of life as soon as he is sufficiently self-aware – until he is shocked into seeing his mother’s viewpoint when he’s thirteen. At this juncture, he is forced to devise a child-like pact in order to preserve his sanity and lifestyle choice. John takes solace from The Pact and it works well for him right into middle age, but as his life progresses and the dreaded occurs, he suddenly has to re-evaluate everything he was and everything he stood for. The circle of history is joined and once again he has to make a decision, one to fit his frightening new world. It’s an old choice, it’s either his mother’s way or that of his father and grandfather.
This book is based on your own experiences so can you tell us a little bit about this?
The Fear is a fictional novel based on real-life events that happened to me and my family. The real-life story, told factually, would have been interesting enough and unique - in the literal sense of the word. However, I felt that by writing a fictional version I could introduce other themes and tighten up time lines to produce a more dramatic story. To me, the fictional version makes the book more powerful and hopefully an even more moving experience for the reader. As for the dementia aspect of the novel, once events in my life got to a point where I knew that one day I would want to write this book, of which my parents’ disease was a part, I recorded many of the subsequent conversations I had with them. A number of these conversations appear in The Fear, albeit in a slightly modified version. Football was a big part of my father’s life, my life and that of my son. Indeed, it become symbolic for my son’s life in a way I could never have imagined. The parts in The Fear that relate to him trying to become a professional football apprentice tell what it was like for me to be there alongside him, watching him chase his dream (and mine), every single second of the way.
Why does every parent need to read this book?
The Fear examines many facets of parenting, even the one of being a parent to one’s own parents. It compares the ways of the past to the present, the daily decisions we make in looking after children and the ones we hope we might never have to make. I think what it really asks is this: We love our children; but in this modern world in which we live, how much do we dare to set them free? I truly believe any parent reading The Fear will empathise and agonise over the succession of bewildering dilemmas faced by John and his wife, and take something from sharing them.
You ran your own mechanical business from aged twenty- so when did you begin to intermingle writing with your day job?
From around the age of thirty – I’m fifty-four now – I started to combine writing with my ‘proper job’. Initially, these ventures were in the form of article writing, but eventually it grew to writing novels. I currently split my time, devoting around half to writing.
Why was 1999 the year do the novel for you?
1999 was the year when my article writing reached a critical point and tipped into book authorship. I had previously sold a truncated version of my first book to the top magazine covering its niche genre. One chapter per month for 14 months saw my profile rise and I attracted a cult following. Using this momentum, the first book was released as a paperback and I wrote a sequel that was published a year later. For the next decade I wrote another sequel every two years to complete a series of seven books. Before the seventh book was due to be published my family suffered some very difficult times, but I managed to complete it. After that came the strongest motivation to write I’d ever experienced. That writing brought about The Fear.
Please tell us a bit about each of your previous publications.
My previous publications, The Syndicate Series, Parts I - VII all relate to my passion for angling. Angling literature, before The Syndicate, fell into two divisions – anecdotal and instructional. My angling books, all fictional novels, explored the obsession of men and their sports/hobbies/pastimes and the havoc it can cause to family life and their partners. Filled with larger than life characters and leaning heavily towards the comedic, they were at once both an homage to angling and a parody of its extreme fringes. This series of books teetered on the brink of a huge breakthrough when, over time, a succession of playwrights attempted to have them commissioned for a TV comedy/drama. Unfortunately, angling was not high on either the BBC or ITV drama lists and it never got passed the stage of a series of pitches.
What is next for you?
Short term, is to help promote The Fear in whatever way I can. After that... who knows? I have ideas and hopes, but at this point in time I guess they’re linked to The Fear - in more ways than one. Whatever happens, I doubt I’ll stop writing.