Slipping Paperback / softback

by John Toomey

Part of the Irish Literature Series series

Paperback / softback

Available to Order - This title is available to order, with delivery expected within 2 weeks

Description

When Albert Jackson, a middle-aged school teacher, catches a glimpse of the infinite universe and his own tiny insignificance he cannot shake himself free of regret for a life all but squandered.

In a blind and demented attempt to salvage something from his life, he sets off, half-lucidly, on a libertine mission to reclaim life, to live it exclusively on his terms.

But the wild and sinister crime he plots, so characterised by delusion, sets him on a path to irreversible destruction. Incarcerated after his crime, at the once prestigious Reil Institute, and in a bid to make spiritual and cosmic amends, Albert Jackson employs the guile of a local novelist, Charlie Vaughan, to tell his story.

In the telling of Albertâ€™s story, Charlie drives the narrative onward and backward, forcing Albert to confront the horrors of his crime. When the inadequacy of Albertâ€™s initial confession forces Charlie to search further afield, he must cede control of the narrative to a range of other narrators too, among them key witnesses to the events leading up to Albertâ€™s crime and a strange third-person account composed by Albert himself. Slipping is a darkly humorous novel about life and love, ambition, bitter disappointment and the cost of committing the unforgivable.