Sometime in 2024, I’m hoping that folks in the press will call me a ‘debut novelist.’ I predict at least two reviewers or journalists will say I’m a ‘late bloomer’ - the middle years are a rather unfashionable age for a scribbler to make a fiction debut. Most prizes, grants and attention are directed squarely at the more fresh-faced, less jaded practitioners of that genre, and this fact of life discourages but does not deter me.
In a writing and reading culture that increasingly accepts the DIY route as a legitimate route to publication, though, it wouldn’t ever be accurate to describe myself as a debut novelist. To claim that would be to discount one of my most impactful works to date - impactful upon me, anyway, in that it cemented my view of myself as An Author: the self-published 1980 work, More than a Neighbour.
I wrote it throughout the latter part of 1979, first in longhand on ruled, hole-punched sheets of paper tied together with yarn, then on my classic Silent Super Smith-Corona. Upon its grand release, it was available in a special-edition hardback, which I painstakingly constructed under the tutelage of my mother and grandmother, and spiral-bound paperback copies produced by my uncle’s print shop that retailed exclusively at my school and church for the then-exorbitant price of $2.
To my immense pride, it was placed in my primary-school library. I’d sometimes go to visit it on the shelves, flipping to the back to see how many times it had been checked out, or to peek at the card for it, tucked into the card catalog’s long drawers.
I didn’t have an editor per se, although my mother proofread and helped me typeset the book, not interfering with the content beyond spelling and grammar corrections. She tells me a story, though, about another time when she meddled more.
At the age of 12 or 13, I entered a finish-the-story contest for The Courier-Journal in Louisville, Kentucky. The story was set against the backdrop of the Great Flood of the 1930s, a disaster that devastated the community on both sides of the Ohio River, and my tale was both gripping and historically accurate, having been exhaustively researched using microfiched records at my local library.
Before I posted in my submission, my mother rubbed out a paragraph she thought was superfluous. The judges held the typewritten page to the light to read the now-faint impressions and opted to restore the paragraph for what proved to be the winning entry, splashed across the Arts and Culture section of the Sunday edition of the paper.
You were right, my mother says to me. You knew what you were doing.
This moment of maternal validation has proven a blessing and a curse.
At the moment, it feels more of a curse. Unaccustomed to editorial input, I bristle, freeze and panic at my editor’s questions about my creative choices. I can’t always tell what I’m dealing with, psychologically: narcissistic injury, uncomfortable but reasonable reactions to legitimate differences of opinion, or the relentless pricking and hissing of imposter syndrome.
In Jeremy Richards’ new book The Accomplished Creative, he traces the history and evolution of imposter syndrome, a term coined in 1978. In that year, the basic outline for More than a Neighbour was germinating in my 8-year-old brain, but that former iteration of myself, the juvenile author of More than a Neighbour, would have found it easier to grasp the existential world of a koala than to imagine what imposter syndrome feels like. That girl wrote utterly un-self-consciously, joyful and spontaneous whilst also careful and precise in her decisions, and she was ultimately unconcerned with any opinions other than her own.
Every day my adult self awakes with the same question: how do I balance freedom and ownership of my work with the necessary and sensible metabolisation of my editor’s comments and pointers? Because, you know, looking back…even More than a Neighbour sorely needed an edit from someone with a different vantage point.
You see, I thought More than a Neighbour was a heartwarming tale of someone who starts afresh in a new city and immediately seeks out close bonds and jolly adventures with the neighbours. The fact that the new arrival was a man in his 20s and his new best friends were all 12-year-old children did not strike me as unsavoury or suspicious. My mother, involved in the typesetting as she was, noticed concerning trajectories in the plot and sometimes queried, with an air of forced nonchalance, whether my main protagonist were based on anyone who lived in our neighbourhood. I didn't understand why she kept asking. Ultimately, she left the manuscript as it stood.
More than a Neighbour formed the basis of the first piece I ever performed on a London stage, at Leicester Square Theatre, for Mortified London. The recording of that night was chosen for the Mortified Podcast, the 2018 Father’s Day edition. I’m happy to re-perform it for you here, the original 66 pages condensed to a collection of passages that my parents were, perhaps, right to be concerned about.
The opening pages betray a charming ignorance of the climate of Southern California, where we set our scene.
Snowballs flew briskly about the houses one wintry day. The door of the new neighbour’s house opened, and the man who had moved in [the] day before came out. He looked very nice, and the children liked him at once. ‘Call me Tom,’ said Tom.
A few days later he got lonely, so he began to make calls. The first house he went to was Susan and Jim’s. He looked at the snow forts and the sled for a long time. He sighed.
Susan and Jim [were] upon him like two young bears. ‘Hello there!’ cried Tom. ‘C’mon, let’s settle down and talk.’ The children obediently sat beside him. ‘Where are your mother and father?’ Tom asked.
‘Let’s not talk about them,’ said Susan quickly. ‘They got killed in a car crash.’
‘Oh,’ said Tom. ‘I see. That coffee looks very good…’
After tea and talk, Tom said goodbye, and walked off whistling.
Tom trudged up a snowy drive to Ethel’s house. A girl opened the door. But neither one spoke. She stared. Tom stared. After about fifteen minutes, Ethel was heard.
‘Oh, hello, Tom! Come in! You haven’t met my sister before. This is Goldie.’
‘I haven’t seen you around the neighbourhood,’ said Goldie, slowly. ‘How old are you?’
‘Twenty-six,’ Tom answered. ‘And you?’
‘Twenty-one,’ answered Goldie. ‘But I’ll be twenty-two next week.’ Tom felt very glad that he had made a friend almost his age.
Before they knew it, everyone was craving for lunch. Luckily, only two plates got broken, only one spoon got bent, three glasses got broken and there were no spills.
Spring came, and with it came warm weather. Tom called all the children’s parents. He asked if he could take the children somewhere.
‘Just send them over to my house at 10 am. Oh, and just send their swimming suits with them.’
They were going to Lake Merlin. When they got there, they decided to swim first, because you shouldn’t swim until about an hour after eating. Tom proposed that each one show a trick they can do in the water. Tom won, because everyone thought his trick was the best.
Tom said to the children, ‘Come into my house; I’ve got a big surprise for you.’ The children eagerly followed. Tom called ‘Buttons,’ and a little lap dog ran out! ‘Wait ‘til you see her collar,’ said Tom, laughing like a boy.
The collar read, ‘I belong to Tom Harris and his twelve best friends.’
‘Oh Tom, how can we ever thank you?’…and the children ran over and kissed and hugged Tom, not at all ashamed to show all their love and affection for the man that was so like a father to them all.
As their association deepened, Tom proposed to the children that they go into business in a disused shed in his back garden, where they could spend more quality time together.
The next morning he told the children that the surprise was ready. They jumped up and down and hugged and talked. Tom put up a sign saying: The Museum of Underwater Life. Press Knob for Service.
At first everything was great. The Museum of Underwater Life was a great success, going from strength to strength and providing Tom with the majority of his income. But Tom’s attention was starting to drift away from his friends, and it was up to one of them, Ethel, to investigate.
During a discussion about swordfish, Tom sat dreamily staring into space with his chin in his hands.
Ethel knew something was brewing. She was like a hound dog keeping trail on the scent of a rabbit. She noticed a new ring on Goldie’s finger. ‘Why, Goldie, that’s a very pretty ring!’
‘Oh this? I got it from a friend.’
Later that week, Ethel wanted to get a necklace, so she walked to Kevin’s Jewellery Store. Suddenly her eyes fell on a sign: ENGAGEMENT RINGS $20 EACH. GUARANTEED TO LAST FOREVER. JEWEL IN MIDDLE.
She gasped. The engagement rings were just like the one that Goldie wore! Tom must be the friend!
[Aside: perhaps the bargain-basement nature of the solitaire was connected to the Museum of Underwater Life’s only charging 10 cents for admission, which seems in line with the sparse and frankly rather rubbish-sounding range of exhibits.]
Ethel decided she would ask Goldie about this.
‘Goldie…I went to Kevin’s Jewellery Store and...I…’
‘You know, don’t you? It’s true. I am engaged to Tom. But we aren’t going to move far away. Tom would miss you all too much!’
Despite my parents’ fears, More than a Neighbour was entirely innocent - Tom was above board. He might have been more than a neighbour, but not that much more. At the end of the book, the whole extended clan, linked by friendship rather than blood, gathered to celebrate Christmas.
Tom decorated the Museum of Underwater Life with lights. The children and their families flocked to Tom’s house. To the children, Tom and Goldie actually gave a puppy each!!! The children laughed and clapped their hands and hugged and danced around Tom and Goldie. The parents were pleased that their children had made such a good friend.
And, even when the children were grown into adulthood, they never forgot Tom.
The End.
In my most intense moments of imposter syndrome, I’m in danger of forgetting Tom, forgetting my first novel, forgetting how to do what I was able to do then. But I can’t let myself forget how to let my mind range free, how to allow my words to pour forth. I can’t let anxiety and avoidance stand in the way of editing my work.
The author of More than a Neighbour had faith that, in the end, it would all come good because she knew, to the core of her being, that she was simply doing what she was born to do.
I’m channeling her today.
This is just delightful! How wonderful that you allowed your imagination free rein back then and were encouraged. Keep that freedom to the forefront of your mind. Just fabulous xx
Ah thank you dear Jenny! More than a Neighbour continues to be my anchor and my reassurance after more than 40 years, so I think it’s served me well. It’s a desperately strange read though! Hahaha