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Truestory

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What happens when motherhood becomes a life sentence? Alice’s life is dictated by her autistic son, Sam, who refuses to leave their remote Lancashire farm. Her only time ‘off’ is two hours in Lancaster on a Tuesday afternoon – and even that doesn’t always pan out to be the break she needs. With money running out and her marriage to Duncan foundering, it seems her life is shrinking to a vanishing point.

Sandstone Press
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Author
Catherine Simpson

Synopsis

What happens when motherhood becomes a life sentence?

Alice’s life is dictated by her autistic son, Sam, who refuses to leave their remote Lancashire farm. Her only time ‘off’ is two hours in Lancaster on a Tuesday afternoon – and even that doesn’t always pan out to be the break she needs. With money running out and her marriage to Duncan foundering, it seems her life is shrinking to a vanishing point.

When Duncan picks up Larry, a rootless wanderer, in the local pub and brings him to the farm to embark on a money making scheme, Alice is hostile. A stranger in their midst can only upset Sam. But miraculously, Larry beguiles Sam, a map obsessive, with tales of travel in the outside world, and as he works his magic on her son, Alice begins to fall for him, too. She glimpses the possibility of another life: of fun, companionship and sex.

Meanwhile, Sam interacts with the world through an online forum called U Chat where he seeks advice and the answers to life’s big questions – with disastrous consequences that impact them all. With Alice’s marriage hanging in the balance, is Larry really the answer?

Truestory examines how we are all trapped in our own ways and how we can rewrite our lives in the margins available to us. It looks at what happens when sacrifice slithers towards martyrdom, but ultimately it will fill you with hope.