GARY FRY

The Pretence by Ramsey Campbell A review by Gary Fry   Back in the 1960s, the American sociologist Erving Goffman published a number of books that demonstrated just how constructed everyday life is, how common encounters with other people and the social world around us involves strategic monitoring of behaviour, tacit knowledge of cultural rules, and appropriate presentations of selfhood. Of course Goffman was only “quantifying” / theorising what sensitive people throughout history have always believed – that human existence is an invention enacted on the hoof, almost like in a stage-play. Here’s some geezer called Shakespeare, back before we modern folk got a handle on all this stuff: All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players; They have their exits and their entrances, And one man in his time plays many parts […] Etc, etc. And so it’s no secret that everyday life is all a bit of an illusion, brought into being by common purpose and mutually convenient conse...

These guys and gals know how to party...

So my new novel SEVERED is now on the market in both paperback and ebook format. All I can say about the book is presented in the short video below. If you like what you see, click the following links to buy a copy of a book a recent review described thus: "SEVERED is an early contender for the novel of the year. When I first started the novel, I was struck by the brutality of the story and was captivated by the world that Fry had created. The novel s tarts with some very harsh scenes that I was surprised to encounter outside of a work of extreme horror. Yet even with the extreme violence and brutality of the story, Fry never loses sight of the novel’s goal and tells the story in a way that kept me completely enthralled. I rarely lose myself in a story yet I quickly found myself a hundred pages in and wanting more. In the middle of the violence, Fry keeps the story tight and never loses sight of his ultimate goal. This is something that I rarely find in a work that is so upfront...