£5.00
Evie and Guy: a novel with no words.
When we tell the story of a relationship, we, and it, are judged by what we omit. By design, by ignorance, or just because there are only so many pages and so much time, the blank spaces tell a story every bit as true, as rich, and as important as the print marks meandering through them. Acknowledging that truth, Evie and Guy is the history of a relationship told through the white space of the protagonists’ most solitary act. It comprises simply the dates, times, and duration in seconds (bracketed where the act was interrupted or unclimactic) of every act of masturbation in their lives.
Our lives are so full of joy, despair, individual triumphs and tragedies so vivid they want to scream at the world until they are imprinted there forever in their splendour. But the moment we begin to tell our stories they become trapped in the dullness of a language constructed to reduce our joyful individuality to the whisper of restrained uniformity.
I want to unpick the chains of language that keep each one of our stories prisoner within a patriarchal colonial prison outside of which we cannot conceptualise ourselves until we can conceive and express ourselves in ways that preserve the glorious individuality of each human spirit.