THE NETWORK (my new novel)
“Cricket changes lives”
“My family’s a battleground and I’m just a small hill which each side occupies to fire on the other.”
Steve Helson, 16, is the young hero of Richard Heller’s new novel The Network. He’s not David Copperfield but he is up against it. He is the only child of a disintegrating marriage. He’s just left a sink school. He has no social life, no girlfriend and no career prospects. The only thing holding him together is his dream of becoming a fast bowler. But his lonely pursuit of his dream brings him a network of new relationships and a new life.
Published by Bearmondsey Publishing, The Network is a delayed sequel to Richard Heller’s much-praised cricket novel A Tale Of Ten Wickets. It is narrated by its principal characters, especially its young hero, in vivid dialogue with deep personal feelings. Richard Heller says: “It was originally intended as a short sequel. The characters took it over and turned into a family saga of Dickensian length – and sentimentality (I keep blubbing myself and I wrote the thing!) Readers will encounter a rich parade of characters. As in early Dickens, they will see good people rewarded, bad people punished (including an indescribably loathsome politician) and a multiple series of happy endings – cricket changes every life.”
“Can’t remember relishing any cricket fiction so much” Matthew Norman of the Evening Standard
Richard Heller is an author and journalist. He was a finalist in BBC Television’s Mastermind 2008 series, answering questions on WC Fields; Napoleon’s family; the Rodgers and Hart songbook. He was joint runner-up in 1996, answering questions on President Harry Truman; British politics between the wars; Sir Garry Sobers. In 2005 he was commissioned by BBC Radio 4 to write Waiting For Gordo, a bleak existential view of backbench life in the Labour Party. From 1981 to 1983 he was chief of staff to Rt Hon Denis Healey MP, then Deputy Leader of the Labour Party. He has worked in the movie business, in this country and Hollywood, and contributed additional dialogue to a motion picture called Cycle Sluts Versus The Zombie Ghouls.
The Network is available in bookshops and through Amazon, or for £9, including postage, from Richard Heller, 204 The School House, London SE1 4HG, telephone 07796 1747 52 email richardkheller@hotmail.com A further £6 secures its highly-regarded prequel A Tale Of Ten Wickets.
