After Alyson
Mark Garvey likes wine, football and women the latter often a bit too much. He is obsessed by his past but wants a better future. His long-term relationship with Alyson, an Australian physiotherapist that he met by chance one day, has ended disastrously.
In an attempt to forge a new start, he escapes Birmingham for a new job as Director of Social Services in Devon. He moves to Hope Cove, rents a holiday home and tries to start a new life.
As a kid, he took holidays in the same part of Devon, so his reason for being there mirrors his desire to rediscover a sense of childhood optimism for the future. Yet leaving does not resolve his problems; it just creates new ones that get in the way of him moving forward. Crime and death overshadows his pursuit of happiness.
He eventually stumbles into a relationship with the local doctor, Kalpna. Yet beneath the surface, the playground of his childhood optimism is littered with pitfalls and chaos not that different to what he has left behind.
Mark Garvey has many problems, but the biggest problem he has is that he is Mark Garvey. Told half through flashback and half through present-day narrative, After Alyson is funny, romantic and at times disturbing.
The insight into deafness and disability makes this book unique. Years ago I went on holiday to Hope Cove. I stayed next door to Drake House. Over time the idea for the novel took place.
Mark Garvey is my alterego like me, he has a hearing impairment but the book is not autobiographical. It explores the problem of being a modern bloke in leftish leaning, slightly PC circles, says David, of his motivation to write the book.
By day, working at Association of Train Operating Companies Ltd, David Sindall tries to make Britains rail network more accessible, but when hes at home he writes.
David is well known across the disability world as a campaigner for improved rights and better access to jobs and services for disabled people. After Alyson is his first novel, although he has previously written plays, including the comedy Three Turds, which was performed at the Edinburgh festival in 1996.