New novel for town writer

A MULTI award-winning Nuneaton writer is hoping to make it a hat-trick of successes when his third novel hits the shelves.

With just over a week to go until ‘The Long Forgotten’ is available, the latest book by David Whitehouse, who hails from Stockingford, has already picked up rave reviews.

Critics have been stunned by the book and this trend is set to continue when it becomes available to the masses on Thursday, March 22.

‘The Long Forgotten’ is the former Stockingford Primary School pupil’s third novel and is about love, loss, inheritance and obsession.

The former King Edward VI college student’s first novel, Bed, won the 2012 Betty Trask Award and his second novel, Mobile Library, won the 2015 Jerwood Fiction Uncovered Prize, so ‘The Long Forgotten’ has a lot to live up to.

Also, in a change to previous books where his childhood and even the old mobile library in Stockingford provided inspiration, the ‘Long Forgotten’ has a different feel according to the writer, who has also worked for national newspapers, the NME and even his own magazine.

‘I first read about the rafflesia – sometimes called the corpse flower - fifteen years ago,” he explained.

“It smells like rotting meat to attract the flies that transport its pollen, and it’s as huge and ugly as hell. It struck me as a fantastic place to hide a body. It took me a long time to find a story where a corpse flower might be of use.

“I supposed it needed a mystery, but I didn’t have one until Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 went missing between Kuala Lumpur and Beijing, in March 2014. I wondered how long it would be before peo- ple who weren’t directly connected to MH370 forgot about it, even though it was out there, in the ocean, somewhere.

“In some way, we all live vicariously through the memories of others, be it accidentally or on purpose, through their photographs on the internet. Their holidays, their weddings, the births of their children. What would it be like to suddenly have memories that belong to someone else? These things were the starting point for writing the book. The Long Forgotten is a love story that begins with one and ends with the other.”

Published by Picador, the book will be available in hardback as well as Ebook.