Miss Woo Country
Peter drifts towards absolute stillness. Time stretches and contracts, blossoms and fades. From his high backed leatherette chair, fiction and fact entwine to chart the development of an unusual child into a reluctant adult.
The beginning and end of this novel occur simultaneously within the walls of a loosely defined Care environment where ill-at-ease Harry keeps an eye on his psychiatrically-challenged service-users and occasionally acts as referee in their surrealist debates. But are any of these debates or the discussions between Peter and Harry real or imagined?
In league with Peter through most of his life are friends K and Alexander. Peter’s affection for them both has always been under threat from his self-confessed paranoia – just one of the issues discussed over the years with his slightly crazed Therapeutic Specialist Neville Smithson and his other ‘adult’ friend, bookshop proprietor Gerald whose existence and humour is governed by the endless possibility of the arrival of Mrs Aldridge.
The journey undertaken in Miss Woo Country is like no other. We are invited to explore a magical, beautiful but vaguely menacing world. The hypnotic, quietly elusive but ever-significant and comedic prose lures the reader towards a conclusion which says much about the power of ordinary human existence.