2004 - Thanks for the Vodka

This isn’t one of those fashionably erotic books where the guy’s got a six-pack and a penis that twangs harder than a piano string. Harpie’s novels are always written in diary format, and this book doesn’t get sexually graphic until January 24th. And it’s not good sex either. It’s dirty, messy, awkward, sweaty sex. This isn’t Nine and a Half Weeks or Indecent Proposal. This is sex that is sticky and clammy.

We join author Harpie after having most of her stomach and intestines removed in a gastric by-pass, all of which means she doesn’t get physically hungry at all. Not ever. This is a radical step when it comes to losing weight, but Harpie is if nothing else radical and extreme.

Trouble is never far from Harpie’s door. Her son’s being violently bullied by boys five years his senior, she’s got a house full of animals, including polecats that bite, and she’s desperately searching for love. Or sex. Or anything. Which is where Rick comes in. Can he be the one?

Harpie’s been abused physically, mentally, emotionally and sexually all her life, but she’s still standing, marching to the centre of the ring every time the bell signals in a new round, eyeballing the opposition as if screaming, ‘Come on life. Let’s see you take your best shot.’

In this book the reader can’t help but experience Harpie’s life the way it is because she shares all the garbage and the unsightly secrets of her soul, as well as that which is wonderful and fascinating.

German novelist, Franz Kafka, wrote, “What we need are books that hit us like a most painful misfortune, like the death of someone we loved more than we love ourselves, that make us feel as though we had been banished to the woods, far from any human presence, like a suicide.” Well here we have one such book. In writing her truths Harpie bares her soul, revealing her deepest and most intimate thoughts, slashing a metaphoric vein and bleeding onto the page.

With ruthless and unblushing honesty, principled integrity and a gallows humour few authors can match, Harpie writes her truth, missing absolutely nothing out, and the reader can’t help but cheer her on from the stands as she struggles to keep her life on track.

And if you want to know what Harpie is doing covered from head to foot in cooking oil and slithering about on the floor of her kitchen while six “big burly fire-fighters” do their duty, well you’ll just have to read the book.

This is a book of raw emotion …. And it bleeds

KW