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Variations on a Theme
The first term at King’s College is underway, and freshers are turning up eagerly to Danny O’Neal’s English lectures. But unsettling stories about the past are appearing in the news, and friends Danny hasn’t seen in years are seeking him out.
In the summer of 1989, at seventeen, Danny landed a role in a literary play and was drawn into the ecstasy-driven hedonism of London's rave scene. Far from home, he fell under the influence of a circle in the cultural establishment, who used drugs and status to exploit him and his friends.
Thirty years on, Danny maintains he was not abused, that it was a different time, and that his attitudes needn’t change just because society’s may have. But the Crown Prosecution Service is building a case that, if pursued, would place Danny at the centre of a high-profile trial. The memories he can summon, and how he frames them, might decide the fate of the case.
When an old friend urges him to get in touch with the others from that long-ago summer, Danny is confronted, one by one, with the distressing long-term consequences of their experiences. With the prosecution gaining momentum, Danny must reckon with a painful how can someone believe almost their entire life that they were not abused—and then change their mind?
In the summer of 1989, at seventeen, Danny landed a role in a literary play and was drawn into the ecstasy-driven hedonism of London's rave scene. Far from home, he fell under the influence of a circle in the cultural establishment, who used drugs and status to exploit him and his friends.
Thirty years on, Danny maintains he was not abused, that it was a different time, and that his attitudes needn’t change just because society’s may have. But the Crown Prosecution Service is building a case that, if pursued, would place Danny at the centre of a high-profile trial. The memories he can summon, and how he frames them, might decide the fate of the case.
When an old friend urges him to get in touch with the others from that long-ago summer, Danny is confronted, one by one, with the distressing long-term consequences of their experiences. With the prosecution gaining momentum, Danny must reckon with a painful how can someone believe almost their entire life that they were not abused—and then change their mind?
267 pages, Paperback
Published December 16, 2025
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February 18, 2026
Variations on a Theme, Sheppard's self-described magnum opus, is a character study of Danny O'Neal at two stages in his life. As a teen, he was groomed, used, and discarded by the London theater scene of the late 1980s. As a middle-aged man in the 2020s, outside influences finally force him to come to terms with those events. The narrative bounces back and forth between old and young Danny, allowing us to experience the rationalization and recontextualization alongside Danny as his past is grudgingly and stubbornly dredged up for the rest of the world to see.
The novel opens with old Danny, who is (now) an author and assistant professor of literature at King's College. I must admit that I was immediately put off by what I generally see as a lazy and eye-rollingly clichéd indulgence -- an author writing of an author. On top of that, the first few chapters are frankly boring, and do little to whet your appetite for the gripping narrative that eventually unfolds.
What is that moth-eaten platitude that all aspiring authors must contend with? "Write what you know" ... no, not that one, Sheppard clearly hews to that phlegmy apothegm. "Show, don't tell" ... no, no! Not that one, either, Sheppard's language is on the whole evocative, rich, and varied. He expertly crafts a naturalistic and lived-in world that you can very nearly taste and smell. "Delete your first chapter" ... ah, there it is!
At one point nearly quarterways through the book, old Danny is meeting with a student, discussing her research proposal. The professor thinks to himself, "[I] saw the moment for what it was: an undergraduate kid's forgivable lapse, a weak premise dressed up in fancy language." After reading this I actually put the book down and incredulously marveled at the irony of Sheppard's seemingly unaware confession. Nevertheless, soon thereafter things perked up, and I found myself engrossed and invested in the story to a degree I haven't been for years.
Sheppard is at his best when living young Danny's trauma, and allowing old Danny to belatedly relive it. His portrayal of the confused impressionability of Danny's youth, and how he was brutally exploited by amoral authority figures, is both visceral and captivating. His likeness of old Danny's false confidence of years, his slow burn of realization that it's ok to not be ok, is likewise earnest and intense.
Sheppard also masterfully builds tension throughout, taking an achingly (even infuriatingly) long time to allow the reader to confirm their fears. I wouldn't say the reader is lulled into a false sense of security by Sheppard's tapdancing -- we all know and dread what's coming -- but by the time subtlety is made substance, by the time we're finally confronted with the enormity of Danny's ordeals, we're numb to them. As a narrative device it works altogether too well, paralleling both Danny's coping mechanism throughout his youth and the intervening 30 years, as well as our actual society's anesthetized response to these sorts of things happening all around us, all the time.
The book is wonderfully written, necessary, and vital. It's a curiosity that Sheppard -- an established author with modest mainstream publishing success -- was ultimately forced to self-publish. It's hard not to suppose that editors unduly preoccupied with Danny's (cis, straight, white, male) identity might have had something to do with it. (An identity likely shared by Sheppard, based on an interview I saw of him.) It's an indictment of modern publishers that none could be convinced Danny's was a story worth telling.
Indeed, "that's not all it was."
The novel opens with old Danny, who is (now) an author and assistant professor of literature at King's College. I must admit that I was immediately put off by what I generally see as a lazy and eye-rollingly clichéd indulgence -- an author writing of an author. On top of that, the first few chapters are frankly boring, and do little to whet your appetite for the gripping narrative that eventually unfolds.
What is that moth-eaten platitude that all aspiring authors must contend with? "Write what you know" ... no, not that one, Sheppard clearly hews to that phlegmy apothegm. "Show, don't tell" ... no, no! Not that one, either, Sheppard's language is on the whole evocative, rich, and varied. He expertly crafts a naturalistic and lived-in world that you can very nearly taste and smell. "Delete your first chapter" ... ah, there it is!
At one point nearly quarterways through the book, old Danny is meeting with a student, discussing her research proposal. The professor thinks to himself, "[I] saw the moment for what it was: an undergraduate kid's forgivable lapse, a weak premise dressed up in fancy language." After reading this I actually put the book down and incredulously marveled at the irony of Sheppard's seemingly unaware confession. Nevertheless, soon thereafter things perked up, and I found myself engrossed and invested in the story to a degree I haven't been for years.
Sheppard is at his best when living young Danny's trauma, and allowing old Danny to belatedly relive it. His portrayal of the confused impressionability of Danny's youth, and how he was brutally exploited by amoral authority figures, is both visceral and captivating. His likeness of old Danny's false confidence of years, his slow burn of realization that it's ok to not be ok, is likewise earnest and intense.
Sheppard also masterfully builds tension throughout, taking an achingly (even infuriatingly) long time to allow the reader to confirm their fears. I wouldn't say the reader is lulled into a false sense of security by Sheppard's tapdancing -- we all know and dread what's coming -- but by the time subtlety is made substance, by the time we're finally confronted with the enormity of Danny's ordeals, we're numb to them. As a narrative device it works altogether too well, paralleling both Danny's coping mechanism throughout his youth and the intervening 30 years, as well as our actual society's anesthetized response to these sorts of things happening all around us, all the time.
The book is wonderfully written, necessary, and vital. It's a curiosity that Sheppard -- an established author with modest mainstream publishing success -- was ultimately forced to self-publish. It's hard not to suppose that editors unduly preoccupied with Danny's (cis, straight, white, male) identity might have had something to do with it. (An identity likely shared by Sheppard, based on an interview I saw of him.) It's an indictment of modern publishers that none could be convinced Danny's was a story worth telling.
Indeed, "that's not all it was."
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