media release
New Jersey: 28 October 2010
for general distribution--
Deirdre,
the Wanderer (A Modern Picaresque) by Jonnie Comet
By the age of 15, Deirdre was not happy at home.
With a teenager’s optimism she developed a logical plan for getting away and
living on the go, on her own terms, which meant not
using sex as currency and not doing
anything (too)
illegal. Her saga unfolds as she tramps from Connecticut to The Bahamas,
sailing on yachts, taking odd jobs, coping with abuse and homelessness, and ultimately
finding a home with a career, loyal friends, and even love.
Author Jonnie Comet categorises Deirdre,
the Wanderer (Surf City Source
Media Group) as escapist fiction: ‘It’s credible reality, real settings, real
entities, and real history, blended with a fully fantastic story
line.’ The story unabashedly combines elements of classic literature, such as Tom
Jones and Jane Eyre, each about a solitary character trying to make it
while passing through the world, with the theme of youthful self-reinvention as
exemplified in The Great Gatsby.
Treating exotic settings as commonplace, the novel
also owes much to the ‘armchair-traveller’ genre as popularised by Jules Verne.
‘I originally wrote this book as a kind of “how-to” for running away from
home,’ says the author, ‘but, in the events following 9/11, the story’s
informational examples would no longer work. Focus for the book was altered
from a faux instructional narrative (alá Around The World in
Eighty Days) to that of pure
fantasy in a now-historical perspective.’
The author readily suggests that ‘female
adventurers are always good fiction. Men read their exploits with salacious
voyeurism and parental protection; and all women respect bold, independent, yet
feminine protagonists.’ Deirdre is appropriately flawed; yet, by her
perseverance in the face of oppressive odds and her inherent morality she
represents the best stuff of which heroes are made.
About the matter-of-fact depiction of risqué
situations, Comet says, ‘It’s just not realistic to assume this stuff would not happen to this character, or any girl
in a similar circumstance. She survives drinking, crime, abuse, and legal lurks
too; and they’re also described in the story.’ Through adversity the narrator
emerges from a self-centred, selfeffacing teenager into an independent young
woman. ‘If you read the book you’ve got to feel sorry for her; and I’ve got to
give you enough to wince at, weep at and worry about.’
At the end of the book, nothing is permanent;
the author, who has sailed, surfed, played rock guitar, and taught
secondary-school English, promises that, in the sequels, Deirdre will cover a
good half of the world in search of a place she can call home.
Deirdre,
the Wanderer is above all
escapist fiction of the highest order. It is a beach book, a bus-trip book, a
bring-it-along book that will transport the reader to a surreal reality
enchanted by the narration of a modest and sympathetic heroine.
Deirdre, the Wanderer, the definitive new Third Edition, is available in Kindle e-text and in paperback via Amazon.com.
