Only Everything

Literary Fiction, 62,000 words.

A wannabe writer wanting a life of her own is caught by a DJ’s promise of love. When the truth of his violence becomes inescapable, she must reach the belief in herself to survive.

1996. 19 yo Mary Campbell, rebelling against her mothers’ constraints, is deep in the highs of the 90’s House scene looking for her life, her way. Until she is looking at Daniel Winchester, the 27yo old British DJ who wouldn’t want her fresh face other than as it is.

It’s hot.

Music. Drugs. Sex without shame.
New life, loaded.

Only nothing is ever quite as he said it would be.

From the first time he hits her, she is ready to understand, to forgive. She knows Daniel is not like his father. Mary doesn’t want to be like her mother either, that is going to be her choice. Covering for him, covering the lies she tells herself of what love is, the orbit of her world shrinks.

Clinging to her pen and the blank page until the words become another reason for his wrath, Mary begins feeble attempts to escape, without the finance or sense of self to really try she bounces back to him. Again, and again. And again.

It is only facing death that she can hold the value of her life.

What will she be left to say of this life, this love…Only Everything.

The 90s Now

I’ve been compelled by my experience of the joyful idealism of the 90’s house scene, pulled by the freedom to do what you want to do to, to be who you want to be, “together as one” without constraint of class or colour to celebrate the music as life, as everything.

Within this, the work is written from a compulsion to see the essence of romance, love, framed in it’s cultural context and placed at the centre of coercive control; the desire for desire, so difficult to break, even in the face of violence.

With a resurgence of all things 90’s and the House scene that spawned the dominant sounds of this century, it feels exciting to revisit this subculture in literary form outside of the male gaze (think Irvine Welsh and Nick Hornby), and to evaluate what might have been wrong, while still holding the ideals and aspirations that might have been right.

The Music of the Manuscript

I’ve had a super fun time polluting my Spotify account with 90’s house bangers. The stellar Angela Presser (aka DJ Dino Bitch) has jumped on board and mixed The Introduction as a little tease and reminder of the music that makes us move.

The Introduction
These are the Sounds of The Gun, casually spinning records in Mary’s living room.

Music of Mary’s World
The mixed bag of music that Mary hears through the pages.

Play…Only Everything.