The plot suggests an interesting mix of meta-fiction with a slightly dark edge and hints of David Lynch. After speaking to the author online, Lochlan sent me an excerpt from the opening of the book which appears below.
Lochlan has completed recent projects for BBC Radio Scotland and written for Slant Magazine and Ironbox Films amongst others. He is the author of several pieces of short fiction including the novella Trade and The Open Cage.
The BBC Writersroom describes his writing as "unsettling and compelling… vivid, taut and grimly effective work," and he has written for Litro Magazine, Porcelain Film, EIU, H+ Magazine as well as Calliope, the official publication of the Writers’ Special Interest Group (SIG) of American Mensa.
He has attend the invitation only SCENEinsiders event at the Gothenberg Film Festival and currently has a feature length script in production with Porcelain Film. He has also taken part in workshops from the Publishing Training Centre and EdinburghMediabase.
Lochlan lives in London and does not have a cat or a dog.
For more details visit: http://lochlanbloom.com.
*
(from) The Wave
μ opened the front door and there it was. It struck him as unusual. There was never normally post for him – some bills perhaps – but even that was less now that he had moved flats.
He turned the envelope over, feeling its weight. The heavy-duty manila suggested its contents might be valuable. His name was written on the front in thick marker pen. Brightly coloured stamps and postmarks crowded together – wavy lines of red ink. One mark looked like it read: "Brasil" and another: "Airmail." μ didn’t know anyone in Brazil.
He pulled at the thick glue that held the envelope shut. Inside lay a sheaf of typed sheets. Names and descriptions of locations were interspersed with clips of dialogue, as if someone had been following people, noting down their actions. It made no sense. Had some confidential dossier been sent to him by mistake? He looked closer.
It appeared to be some sort of film script. He didn't read these sorts of things and he struggled to grasp the layout. Most of each page was white space, broken only by small regular clumps of text floating in the centre. Why had it been sent to him?
He leafed quickly through. Page after page was covered in light grey font reminiscent of old-fashioned manual typewriters. He ran his finger over one of the pages but it was smooth and appeared to have been printed rather than hand typed. Who would send him this? He checked the envelope again; it definitely looked like one of the stamps read "Brasil." There was no letter of explanation enclosed.
μ threw his bag on the couch and placed the script on the table, orbiting around it. The flat took up two floors of a draughty old building that had been half-heartedly renovated in order to rent out. The landlord was never there and his flatmates weren’t back by so he had the place to himself.
He flicked through the first few pages. What a disappointment! Twelve pages in and it was clear that this was no "Citizen Kane." Instead there was a confused story about a character named Ddunsel, who seemed to be the main suspect in a case involving several abductions, child molestation and murder. In several places graphic descriptions of his crimes were included. He seemed to be some sort of all-powerful psychopath. The action jumped around at random and the dialogue was uniformly poor. Who had sent him this drivel?
The few sections that contained anything approaching a decent plot were ill-thought-out and μ felt a dislike for the writing. There was no narrative line, only a haphazard collection of scenes, and it was obviously written by someone with little love of language.
Despite the clumsy phrasing, μ felt it was all written for a purpose, as if by some malevolent intelligence. He was in the middle of reading one repulsive section, describing the brutal rape and murder of a young boy by Ddunsel, when the sound of the front door made him jump.
They would all be returning for dinner. μ put the manuscript down and then, on impulse, covered it with a magazine. He had nothing to hide, but still, child murder was not what he wanted them to think he usually read.
He was sharing the house with foreigners. They entered, talking amongst themselves, and threw a nod in μ's direction. He nodded back and they busied themselves preparing their evening meal. There were only three others that actually lived there – Georgi, Ivan and Katarina – but often their friends would come around in the evenings and as many as ten or twelve of them would sit in the shared space eating and talking.
μ had not stayed in the flat for long but it already felt a lot better than the place he had been before. It was hard to believe that he had stayed in that old house for so long. Now he was sure his problems were behind him.
"All those people living on top of each other, rubbing against each other every day," he thought. "It's just as well that I moved out."
*
Learn more about The Wave by visiting Dead Ink Books.
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