Red

by Richard M. James

Red is for wine, blood, revolution, colour... It's in 3 parts broken up by episodes with headings rather than traditional chapters. A "gay-themed" rather than "gay" tale using and abusing Faust and vampire myths, which merges dark psychological thriller and "romantic" love story with a suitably wicked sense of humour. The deliberately non-linear and self-conscious narrative, told from three different viewpoints (who is the mysterious I?), plays with themes of identity, character, memory, storytelling, fiction and fact; and words themselves thereby with the reader too.

Red is also an unashamedly opinionated celebration of life, wine, food, cities, music, buildings, art, films, history, literature, politics... humanity at play. Where it starts (Manchester) is just one beginning from one character’s perspective, as much of the story is told in flashback with three possible outcomes. Time periods swing from suggestively vague to detailed (Edinburgh and San Francisco past & present, revolutionary England and Paris, Barcelona) to contrast its underlying structure with dream-like melt-down of the storyline, which occasionally picks up on the same episode or point in time told from another angle...

320 pages, Kindle Edition

Published February 1, 2012