Mr Romance

by Miles Gibson

Teenager Skipper shares his parent's boarding house with their lodgers, lovely Janet the bijou beauty and Senor Franklin, the volcanic literary genius. Life is sweet, until one night the lugubrious Mr. Marvel, looking a bit like an unfrocked priest, seeks shelter with them. Who is the mysterious fugitive and what dark secret haunts him? Skipper sets out to solve the riddle. But then the astonishing, levitating Dorothy Clark arrives and his life is thrown into turmoil. He falls hopelessly in love and plans a grand seduction; he'll stop at nothing. But Dorothy is saving herself for Jesus. This is a wild, over-the-top ride in a new ""world"" created by a unique and always surprising writer.

Genres: Fiction

292 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 1994

About the author

Miles Gibson (born 1947) is a reclusive English novelist, poet and artist.
Gibson was born in a squatters camp at an abandoned World War II airbase, RAF Holmsley South in the New Forest, and raised in Mudeford, Dorset. The camp was dubbed Tintown and had been sanctioned by Christchurch Town Council as a way to ease postwar housing shortages. He was educated at Sandhills Infant School, Somerford Junior School and Somerford Secondary Modern - now The Grange School.

Gibson’s darkly satirical writing has been described as both “magic realism” and “absurdist fiction”. Although his narratives remain linear in construction his employment of black humour, pastiche, and untrustworthy narrators places him firmly among the postmodernists.

Reviews

[Vit Babenco · Rating 5 out of 5]

“The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?” Jeremiah 17:9
Although Mr Romance shows an obvious postmodern mood the tale is very atmospheric and playful.
There is a certain old boarding house… And in the boarding house there are inhabitants and lodgers…

I was eighteen years old, fresh from school, and dressed to play the part of housekeeper in a long green apron with a pair of Marigolds in the pocket. We had several rooms to rent – it was a big house and we needed the money. Janet had taken a bright, sunlit room on the first floor with a little balcony to its window. Senior Franklin had a pair of rooms beneath the rafters where he cultivated his genius and scowled upon an ungrateful world from narrow windows secured with rusting iron bars. My parents slept at the back of the house and I slept above the kitchen in a room with a view of the grey backyard. And still the house seemed empty, its heavy walls and the massive floorboards absorbed our voices and muffled our footsteps, making us feel like a party of ghosts.

The young narrator is known to everyone as Mr. Romance… And everything is going fine until one day a visitor arrives… And Dorothy is an explosive mixture of temptation and religion… And Mr. Romance is on fire…

‘Beware of having the world explained before you’ve fashioned a view of it. It’s important to know your own mind. And Christians are such a happy breed they can never resist interfering and making your life a misery. Naturally, I don’t expect you to heed this advice and, by the same token, I trust you’ll ignore any other advice that people may try to thrust upon you. Know your own mind and follow your bliss. Believe in your secret destiny.’

And with so much divinity all around soon enough a miracle happens… But this miracle is more postmodern than the biblical one…
Despite all the wonders, the usual day-to-day life must go on and it is full of surprises.

[Mary Davidsaver · Rating 5 out of 5]

Miles Gibson takes us into the sheltered life of Skipper: the good son, the willing caretaker of an interesting boarding house, and the quiet rebel who lives for wrestling, romance, and prying into the mysterious lives of the boarders. The language is bawdy at times but never coarse. Gibson uses elegantly sculpted passages to measure the paradoxes of love, loss, and the bible. It was a treat to find this gem.

[Payne · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked this - quirky - fun.

[Sue Corbett · Rating 5 out of 5]

Outrageous characters, well-written and lol- funny