Therapy offers second chance

Kevin Duffy, an enterprising Hebden Bridge publisher, has brought out six novels under his Bluemoose Books imprint since 2005; a seventh, King Crow, by Bradford-based writer and artist Michael Stewart, is due out in January.

Duffy is an energetic bookseller on a mission to find interesting, well-written stories.

Gabriel’s Angel, by Mark A Radcliffe, a sad, funny take on the lines of the 1946 Powell and Pressburger movie A Matter Of Life And Death, is Duffy’s latest attempt to break through.

In the film, a Second World War bomber pilot bales out of his burning airplane and finds himself in heaven, where he is judged by a celestial tribunal.

In Gabriel’s Angel, four characters – two of them dead, two on the brink – find themselves in group psychotherapy with a couple of angels.

God has decided that, due to the complexities of modern life, people need to be given a second chance to redeem their souls, hence the pre-death therapy sessions – a pilot project.

In between sessions, the back stories of the four characters, their lives and loves – or non-loves in the case of Kevin the contract killer – unfold. The most compelling storyline is that of Gabriel, a 40-something sardonic website sports writer, and his partner Ellie, undergoing the trials and tribulations of IVF treatment.

Gabriel is knocked down by Julie, on her way through East London. Kevin, the killer, disembowels himself on a barbed wire fence before drowning in the Thames, having murdered Yvonne, an incompetent publisher. These are the four who come face-to-face in a semi-circular building – not unlike the banana building in Centenary Square – somewhere outside heaven.

There are other stories, one of which involves Julie’s former lover James, a faded 1980s pop star whose band Dog In A Tuba had one Top 10 hit in the UK and a couple in Japan and Germany. Though balding and fat, he dreams of going back on the road.

Why is it that new writers of a certain age feel obliged to include 1980s pop in their stories? This story-line, full of one-dimensional characters, is an unfortunate diversion and could have been better treated if James was one of the characters in the heavenly ante-room. Yvonne could have been an incompetent record producer; that would have given the main story more coherence.

Mark A Radcliffe – not to be confused with the BBC’s Mark Radcliffe – spent eight years writing this book. What could have been a splendid satirical fable ends up a light contemporary comedy, full of TV and song references. Information weights it down, which is a pity.

His writing is uncluttered and mostly achieves its comic effects. He has a droll wit and a sardonic rather than cynical observational skill: “Izzy was the type of woman who tended not to like her friends very much...

“Moira is as close to being an expert on Reiki, crystal healing, reflexology, aromatherapy, Bach flower remedies and homeopathy as one can get outside of a yurt...”

Mark A Radcliffe will be at the Bradford branch of Waterstone’s on August 3, between noon and 1.30pm, signing copies of Gabriel’s Angel.