Martin Hopkins's Blog: Cracks in the Pavement author/reader discussion - Posts Tagged "poverty"

Hi! 'Cracks in the Pavement' is my debut novel. I have also written a short story called 'Old Man in Window'.

The book started when I was walking to work (Boots Opticians) and I was often hungover and tired, due to a penchant for beer and not sleeping very well. You can't die from insomnia! Fight Club likes to remind me, but you can feel like death warmed up!

I felt as if I was drifting and hadn't really found my place in the world. I was getting paid little money for the time and effort I put in and had to deal with a moron of a boss, whose name (William) will not be mentioned here, um...

I tried acting. I performed in four plays at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival including Dostoyevsky's 'Crime & Punishment' and Chekhov's 'The Boor'. It was fun and it enabled me the confidence to get over my fear of public speaking (I felt anything I had to say was unimportant and would not be taken seriously, who am I? Just some young guy who doesn't know anything, right?)

Wrong. Everyone has their own slant on their world and what's happening around them. Each one of these opinions are valid as it is their personal expression and the freedom to do so. Art in it's truest form comes from this.

I saw countless numbers of beggars and what I assumed to be homeless people. I felt bad for them and tried to give spare change when I had some. After walking the same route to work for years I was seeing the same faces, day in, day out. They hadn't lost any weight, so they obviously were not starving. They also seemed to disappear at night. I began to suspect that some people were not genuinely homeless, that it was all an 'act'. They chose their spot and often would be there at exact times, swapping with someone else at another time.

The idea of an underground community operating together fascinated me, so I began to write this story. Originally it was a screenplay, but it is real hard to get a film made...so I changed it to a novel. It has taken around a year and a half, on and off, to write.

I decided I had had enough of working as an Optical Consultant, getting paid peanuts and having to put up with an idiot telling me what to do, so I quit.

I started a Creative Writing course at Edinburgh University and finished my novel. So here I am...

The story looks at the depths and heights of modern society. It deals with issues such as homelessness, addiction, poverty, wealth, prostitution, crime, pornography and sex, and what happens when a disillusioned young man begins to hate society for all it's problems and becomes a danger to that society.

I had been reading a lot of Bret Easton Ellis at the time and apparently 'Sex and violence sells...' so I have added a graphic sexual and violent element to the book which may offend some readers or not. As a writer, I have tried to tackle these issues from all angles and write it in a new and different way.

I hope you like the book! All reviews are welcome, good and bad :)

I look forward to discussing the novel with you.

All the best,

Martin

Cracks in the Pavement

It was early Monday morning in Edinburgh. A chilling breeze and lashing rain reigned. Winter was almost upon us. The 'nine 'til fivers' were like electrified zombies on a never-ending loop for five days of their lives, week after week after goddamned week. The slick concrete reflected the facades of the work weary - grey, cracked and old, but more importantly, trodden upon.

The streets were busy. Unusually busy for a small metropolitan city that is. Edinburgh is not London or New York. One person stood out amongst the crowd. He was a wealthy man in a long camel- coloured overcoat...

Hey folks! I'm looking to find some eager readers out there who love to write reviews about the work they have read...any takers!? :)