Naught’s Had: A Romance

Front Cover
EFG Publishing, Sep 6, 2015 - Fiction - 404 pages

 Naught’s Had is the story of Kimberley and Alex, two ordinary, unsophisticated young people, set against the backdrop of the 1970's. As rock 'n roll energizes their world and makes them believe in tomorrow, the story plays out the complexities of two people, and their choices of how to love, and not love each other.

 

 Author's Opening Comments:

“My novel is about passion, longings, fears.  It is about not knowing how to love but loving anyway.  It is about social pressures. It is about letting love be whatever it is. It is about holding on and holding back.  It is about games people play.  It is about the interplay between love and fear.  It is loud.  It is urgent.  It is young. It is frustrating. It has something to say about being alive. 

“The book is built on an experiential sense of form, not a conceptual one. There is no narrative voice outside the perspective of the characters, and none of the perspectives are raised above the others. No one is right; they are merely experiencing, and, in that, discovering.  Life appears on the pages in all it's everyday, unsophisticated glory. And, like life itself, the novel does not resolve its tensions.”

 *************

“This isn’t your everyday romance ...  These are complex characters, with complex backstories, detailed painstakingly ... characters you won’t soon forget, dealing with issues that are unfortunately too prevalent in today’s society. The author does a masterful job of exploring the complex nuances of relationships with her often lyrical, almost stream-of-consciousness writing style.”

Publisher’s Daily Reviews

 Kimberly and Alex make their choices until their love for each other lead both to go in separate directions. But, before this happens, we experience the questioning of life itself through these characters, as they try to understand ‘this thing called love,’ intellectually through Kim, and viscerally through Alex. No solution is ever given. We have it “naught” (as it were) – we’ll just have to try to figure it out for ourselves. It’s a ‘whodunnit’ on the relationship front.
“Shirley Fortescue”

 

Contents

Section 1
3
Section 2
20
Section 3
33
Section 4
37
Section 5
54
Section 6
71
Section 7
91
Section 8
98
Section 17
199
Section 18
216
Section 19
230
Section 20
246
Section 21
287
Section 22
301
Section 23
316
Section 24
332

Section 9
103
Section 10
108
Section 11
116
Section 12
130
Section 13
148
Section 14
161
Section 15
173
Section 16
184
Section 25
349
Section 26
363
Section 27
373
Section 28
389
Section 29
401
Section 30
415
Section 31
417
Copyright

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases

About the author (2015)

“I was born in a small town in the interior of British Columbia, from which I was rescued when my father decided he had at last seen enough snow, and we moved to the coast. My rescue was accomplished only over my loud and long objections. I was about to discover that the safeness and sameness of our small town came at a cost. I literally went from reading Harlequin romances to the writings of Fritz Perl and Carl Rogers: my mother had returned to university and she left interesting books around. That was when I knew I wanted to understand how relationships worked, but the truth of it, and not some tidy and polite version. I didn't yet know that fiction was the best format to explore human experience. That came at SFU. The writings of Faulkner told me that even in safeness and sameness, truths could be found. The ordinary could be revelatory. We just had to look. I've been looking ever since. There is something in everything.”

Vivian Gerow

Vivian graduated from Simon Fraser University with a degree in English Literature. She was strongly encouraged and supported by a number of people there, including the late Dr. Don Rubin, specializing in contemporary literary styles.  

Bibliographic information