Mark A Radcliffe: Author and publisher hit the right note

Hebden Bridge publisher Bluemoose Books is releasing its latest novel nationally – a first for the small company. Arts reporter Nick Ahad met the chosen author.

Mark A Radcliffe is clearly a caring guy.

So why has the former mental health nurse written a novel with one of the most excruciating-to-read passages one could ever wish to come across?

"Ah yes, that scene," says Radcliffe, when I remind him of the episode in his book Gabriel's Angel.

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It is an incident far too graphic to explain here. Essentially it is a vivid – very vivid – description of a particularly horrifying injury sustained by a male character to a very sensitive part of his body.

"Any man I've spoken to who has read the book says they read that part with

their legs crossed," laughs Radcliffe.

Enough said.

The incident – and the panache with which it is written – is one of a number which convinced Kevin Duffy, the man who set up Bluemoose Publishing in Hebden Bridge in 2005, that Radcliffe was not only the right person to publish, but the one to help push his small publishing house to the next stage of its history.

Gabriel's Angel, published this month, is the first Bluemoose book which will go into Waterstone's stores nationally. The book follows previous Bluemoose publications The Art of Being Dead by Stephen Clayton and Anna Chilvers's Falling Through Clouds. While

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these have performed well, this is the first time a Bluemoose Book has been sold nationally.

"It is a big step for us as a company," says Duffy.

"But we are ready to take that next step and Mark's book is the right one for us to take the next step with."

Interestingly, were it not for similar musical tastes, the book might not have been published at all.

Once he had found Bluemoose, Radcliffe sent an email and was delighted to hear back from Duffy. But that wasn't the end of it.

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Duffy says: "When we made the offer to take him on, Mark sent an email asking for my top 10 favourite songs. He was essentially auditioning me to see if he thought we could work together – which was an unusual thing for a first-time author to do."

Fortunately, there was synchronicity between the respective music lists and publisher and author collaborated on

Gabriel's Angel.

Radcliffe had worked as a mental health nurse for a number of years. But earlier this decade, he decided to pursue an ambition that had been with him for a long time and enrolled on a creative writing MA course at the University of East Anglia.

"My plan was to sign up with an agency and do some freelance nursing to pay my way through the course," he explained. It didn't work out that way and, instead, Radcliffe found himself writing a regular column for the trade magazine the Nursing Times.

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Although a foot into the door of the world of publishing, it was not the kind of writing for which Radcliffe had a real passion.

He finished his MA, began sending out manuscripts and made little progress.

Moving to Brighton, he took up a teaching position at Southampton University and, more recently, at a nurse training college in Brighton.

All the while, he was writing the manuscript for Gabriel's Angel.

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The novel is set somewhere between heaven and hell, where a group of recently deceased people gather to take part in therapy sessions to determine whether they end up in heaven, hell, or are given another crack at life.

The book takes in issues around psychotherapy, which it endlessly satirises, but also morality and the balance between good

and evil.

Surprisingly, Radcliffe is not a religious man.

"While I don't have a faith, I find it fascinating that the notion of God is the pole around which we dance,"

he says .

"If you are exploring the notions of morality and what it is to be good, or bad, then a religious construct is the one that we all share. It's a framework we all understand, so in order to look at these questions I decided to set the story in these therapy sessions – and that also allowed me to satirise the whole psychotherapy industry."

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Although Radcliffe has issues with the industry with which he was closely affiliated while working as a nurse –he calls the "commodification of attention given to people who need to be listened to" as a serious modern ill – the book is not driven by issues, but by story and character.

He is particularly pleased with the creation of Kevin, a hired assassin who kills a woman and then finds himself face to face with his target in the afterlife.

"While it's about all these other issues, it's essentially a really good story with really great characters," says Duffy.

"Which is why we're really pleased that it's taking the name of Bluemoose around the country."

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