Monday, September 12, 2016

OOTHANGBART by Rebecca Lloyd





Oothangbart - a Subversive Fable for Adults and Bears
Publisher: Pillar International Publishing
Author: Rebecca Lloyd
ISBN:  978-1-911303-02-2     Page Count: 200
Retail Price: £9     Pub. Date: Ist. October 2016
 
In the beautifully-isolated Oothangbart, order and organisation, hierarchy and custom, and the regular flying of kites ensure that each finely-mapped hour of each planned week are as predictable and reassuring as the last. One Donal Shaun Hercule Poseidon, a citizen of middling rank with no greatness in gait or demeanour, is not so reassured and is becoming less and less predictable. Love is partly to blame. Were it not for his love for the baker, Pearl Offering, his shed would not be filled with ossified bagels, nor would he be constantly fretting over the unsent love-letter that sat upon his mantelpiece. Nature had its role to play too. Were it not for the leaping fish that emerged unannounced and unexpected from the supposedly-barren river encircling Oothangbart, he might have wandered unnoticed for his entire existence and taken his philosophical questions with him to the grave. Government is definitely to blame. When the fish-panic seized Oothangbart, Donal was dragged into the machinery of government and thrust into an officialdom which had no place for a creature of thought. This is Donal’s story.




After walking for some time, he arrives at a vast pit he cannot circumnavigate and realises that a fellow cannot live outside society.  He returns to Oothangbart ready to face his punishment with dignity, but finds that he is welcomed as a hero. The whole of Oothangbart wants to know if he reached Bristol and what it’s like. Before he can decide whether he should tell them the truth, the crowd offers up its own versions, and the myth remains intact. Donal becomes Organiser of the Kite Festival, a job he loves, but nothing raises his spirits until Pearl becomes a friend of his waking as well as of his dreams.





Rebecca Lloyd writes short stories and the occasional novel. Her story collection Mercy, nominated for a World Fantasy Award, was published by Tartarus Press in 2014 alongside The View from Endless Street, a collection that came out with WiDo Publishing. A third collection, Whelp and Other Stories was a finalist in the Paul Bowles Short Fiction Award, and Bogieman, a story from that collection won the 2016 New Fictions Prize at Gatehouse Press. Her recent publications include Ragman and Other Family Curses (Egaeus Press) and Jack Werrett, the Flood Man (Dunhams Manor Press). She is working on a new collection of gothic stories, and her novel, Oothangbart will be published in the autumn by Pillar International Publishing.



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