Summer Reads - About Mick Jackson

Author Biography
Mick was born in Great Harwood, Lancashire in 1960. He now lives in Brighton. Several things have happened in between (not all of them interesting).
He went to Queen Elizabeth’s Grammar School in Blackburn … and studied Drama at Dartington College of Arts in Devon … was a singer in a band for several years and lived in London, before finally accepting that neither thing was doing him much good … moved to Cambridge, then Norwich where he studied Creative Writing under Malcolm Bradbury and Rose Tremain … and after hearing about the eccentric 5th Duke of Portland, decided to write a novel about someone a little similar, but completely made-up.
He has published four books – The Underground Man, Five Boys (both novels) and Ten Sorry Tales and Bears of England which are more akin to ‘folk tales’ or ‘curiosities’. His third novel, The Widow’s Tale was published in March 2010 and is currently working on the next book and a variety of screenplays, including an adaptation of The Underground Man.

The Widow's Tale synopsis
A woman runs out of her house, gets in her car and starts driving. And carries on driving until she reaches the Norfolk coast…where she rents a cottage, to hide away and contemplate her new, husbandless life.
She’s not sure, but thinks she may be having a bit of a breakdown. She’s certainly drinking a little more than she ought. But as her story slowly unfolds we discover that her marriage was not exactly perfect. And that by running away to this particular village she may very well be carrying out her own small pilgrimage.
By turns elegiac and highly comical, The Widow’s Tale conjures up the most defiantly unapologetic of narrators as she picks over the wreckage of her life and tries to establish what she should carry with her and what she should leave behind.

Selected Quotes:
“I read it in one sitting. It’s very funny about the small indignities of grief, as well as the complex and muddy nature of bereavement. I grew very fond of its frank, truculent heroine, and found her situation in her little cottage utterly believable.”
Deborah Moggach

“Very funny. You never know this woman’s name but, my God, you know her voice ... The Widow’s Tale more than equals [Jackson’s] astonishing debut. He’s back.”
The Times

“It is the widow’s vulnerable sassiness that lingers longest in the memory. Jackson delights in detailing her anxieties and obsessions … weaving them into a thoroughly convincing and often very funny emotional portrait.”
Sunday Telegraph

"Finely-judged … her Tale perfectly captures the disorientation that comes with grief and brings it to life against the big skies, grainy light and salt tang of an east coast winter.”
Guardian