Truestory

<p><strong>A mother tethered to her home-by an autistic son who's tethered to his computer-yearns for freedom in this sharply observed novel: A terrific read. -<em>The Herald</em></strong> </p><p><br></p><p>Alice's life is dictated by her autistic son Sam who refuses to leave their remote Lancashire farm. Her only escape is two hours in Lancaster on Tuesday afternoons. </p><p><br></p><p>Then one day her husband brings rootless wanderer Larry to the farm to embark on a money-making scheme. Alice is hostile-but Larry beguiles Sam with tales of travel in the outside world and soon Alice begins to fall for him too. By turns blackly comic heartbreaking and heartwarming <em>Truestory</em> looks at what happens when sacrifice slithers towards martyrdom and how even when we feel trapped in our lives we sometimes have more options than we realise. </p><p><br></p><p><em style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>Moving but never mawkish and ultimately hopeful providing a sympathetic portrait of a family struggling with autism in straitened times. Sam's on-line interactions with a motley group of friends are laugh-out-loud funny. -</em><strong style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(0 0 0 1)><em>Sunday Mirror</em></strong></p><p><br></p><p>[Simpson's] writing is vivid perceptive and acute. -<strong>James Robertson Walter Scott Prize-winning author of <em>News of the Dead</em></strong></p>