Journeys in the Dead Season
by Spencer Jordan
Pan Macmillan, HK$90
It wasn't only the winner of Richard & Judy's How to Get Published competition who benefited from a book deal. All five finalists were picked up by Pan Macmillan, including Spencer Jordan, whose Journeys in the Dead Season intertwines two stories for a persuasive examination of a psychologically dysfunctional man jailed for his role in attacks on young girls in central England. The prisoner plays along with his psychiatrist by keeping a diary. He recounts his past, including his association with 'Jim', his partner in crime. He also starts reading the work of Captain Crowe, a shell-shocked victim who journeys across Leicestershire in the 1920s to visit war-time friends and to finish writing his book on horticulture. Crowe's odyssey, Perambulations of a Soldier: Autumn to Winter, has a special resonance for the captive, whose take on what he reads affords a disturbing insight into his psyche. Jordan won comparisons to literary heavyweight Kazuo Ishiguro, with The Guardian adding 'Journeys ... is a debut of real literary merit'.
