Reticent – an adjective meaning ‘not revealing one’s thoughts or feelings readily.’

Some people call reticence a very British condition. The stiff upper lip and all that. We don’t like to boast unless it’s talking about the Royal Family or two World Wars and one World Cup and only then under the coercion of alcohol.

And for myself I’ve recognised that for the last few weeks I’ve been living under a cloud of reticence regarding my latest (and possibly greatest) novel – Vole. Yes gentle reader, Alan has hidden his fat, bearded, wine-soaked light under a rather large and expansive bushel and shied away from giving his best towards promoting said book.

I’ve mentioned before on this here blog and my (now sadly defunct) podcast about what a tremendous struggle it was to write Vole and how my personal life had been a tumultuous time during the process, and I think in many ways that has led me to suffer from a surfeit of self-doubt and anxiety about the novel.

My fears were largely founded on the idea that this time I’ve gone too far with my subject matter and have trodden where other authors might fear to tread. SPOILER ALERT! Vole is about a pervert who gets his kicks from sniffing ladies bicycle seats but redeems himself under a barrage of opposition to his obscure and anti-social activities. It’s funny but oh so rude, filthy even, and not the kind of book to be read by anyone under the age of 18 (possibly 21) or by old maiden aunts with weak dispositions. As James Herbert once said about his horror novel, The Fog – ‘For God’s sake don’t leave this on the arm of your grandmothers chair.’

That is, unless you’ve got a very broad-minded grandmother.

Speaking as the creator of Vole I can say hand on heart that it is exceedingly well written, sordidly humorous and populated by a cast of superbly drawn characters that wouldn’t be out of place in one of Amsterdam’s more nefarious night spots. But speaking as a decent member of society I would say that it’s up there with John Cleland’s Fanny Hill when it comes to literary smuttiness. And that is the root cause of my recent reticence.

However…

I have now decided to emerge from the self-imposed shadows I’ve been hiding in and am ready to wade back into the grimy, seweresque underworld of social media and start promoting the damn thing for all it’s worth. And why on Earth shouldn’t I?

After all, it took eight difficult, soul-searching months of my life to produce and cost me a lot of physical fibromyalgia pain along the way. I worked hard on this book; bloody hard in fact, and I’m not prepared to just let it slip by unnoticed, forgotten and uncared for.

My outlook has been buoyed by a recent flurry of sales of Vole. Heck! I must be doing something right if people want to spend good money on it and there are three reviews on Amazon so far. Ok, so not exactly viral but all positive and affirming.

So it’s best foot forward now and no looking back. I want to stick my chest out with newly-stiffened resolve and say, ‘I am Alan Stevenson, the author of Vole.’

I think next week, if not sooner, I shall write a blog post detailing the inspiration for Vole and how it came about. You’ll be surprised, I think. Until then, do feel free to purchase this cheeky little wretch of a book, or any of my other ones if you prefer, from Amazon either as a Kindle download (a mere, piffling £2.99) or a paperback (slightly more at £8.99 but worth every penny) and see if I’m right.