Born in Leicester, raised in Loughborough, and then let loose on the wider world, Martin Goodman settled down to become a writer at the age of twelve. It’s the one plan that stuck. Books evolve in his head while others come out in the world. Spanning fiction and nonfiction, sixteen titles take on spiritual journeys, reckonings with ancestral heritage, great lives, eco dramas, and gay themes. Some books win prizes, others win a few readers, and he figures all were worth the years that went into them. See his website here for more.
As a Leicester-based site you’ll probably get my brief pitch: Joe Orton on the Beach.
Faisal arrived in England in a boat of refugees from Calais. This time he’s swimming the Channel.
An English couple wait on the beach. They save lost boys – turning them into real men. Faisal will be their triumph, their first cross-Channel swimmer.
They plan to celebrate. Then out of nowhere Cameron appears. He’s Scottish but black, in smart clothes but with dirty hands.
Is this another young man they can save? Or has he been digging around in their dark secrets? Now do they have to save themselves?
You can read more about Swimming for England on the publisher's website here. Below, you can short a short extract from the novel.
From Swimming for England
That bit about the sea swallowing him up, surely he didn’t mean… ?
Or is this him coming back?
It’s a young man for sure—but he’s not wearing white. He’s not wearing anything; well just a band of the briefest black swimming trunks. Black hair, brown skin, his feet stepping securely on pebbles like they were cushions of moss, walking with such poise, and as he steps free of the mist the daylight catches the wet sheen on him.
Eileen opens wide her arms. "Faisal!" she says.
"Hello Mum."
Faisal kisses Eileen on the cheeks. His lips are cold and he smells of the sea. Her waterproofs crinkle as she wraps her arms about his waist.
"You did it!" It’s hard to speak, her head pressed against the flesh of his chest, his heart beating fast, faster than hers, but she manages it. "Our boy’s a cross-Channel swimmer!"
He presses his hands on her shoulders and levers himself away. It’s not unkind. It’s just that Brian has stepped so close that Eileen’s squeezed off to the side.
"Dad." Faisal wraps his arms around Brian and they do a bear hug.
Brian laughs that the boy is so wet and his oilies are working. "Go on," he says. "Shake yourself. Like a puppy. I said you would."
Faisal shakes himself. His black hair flicks wide from the wetness of his scalp and droplets rain in a silver shower all around him. Brian and Eileen laugh so Faisal shakes himself again.
There’s a roar. It comes from inside the mist, from the sea, a male bellow that swells like it was going somewhere, an anger set to explode, and then it just stops. They listen for more, and hear just the crash of a wave, and then another.
"What was that?" Faisal asks.
"That’ll be Cameron."
"He’s a young man," Eileen adds. "He’s got a good voice but he can’t swim. I think he’s thrown himself into the sea."
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