George Harrison in new novel
There’s a new novel, Compline by Gladys Pagendam, currently only available for Kindle, with a George Harrison connection. Here’s the blurb:
When a hip seventeen year old leaves the stomping Merseybeat scene, at the height of Beatlemania, to enter a convent, little does she know that her life as a nun would include a very unique relationship with George Harrison, the famous Beatle, with whom she would share some offbeat, compromising, and sometimes hilarious experiences.
Compline is a retrospective story told from the viewpoint of Nan, a grandmother, who once was this nun. The title is taken from the Book of Hours, which sets down the daily prayer rituals of a nun’s life. Compline is sung before retiring to bed, when the Grand Silence is imposed, symbolising those precious moments before the silence of death.
Nan is dying and her three grown-up granddaughters want to know about her life. However, truth is elusive, and Nan’s stories are far-fetched, especially those about her life as a nun, and her extraordinary relationship with George Harrison. Her children barely tolerate her stories, but when her granddaughters find evidence that some of her stories could be true, they begin to investigate further.
Within the context of family life, involving fraught mother/daughter relationships, love affairs, crime, and ambitious attempts to solve global problems, the grandmother’s inner world is explored, as is the ephemeral nature of memory, the meaning of truth, and the complexity of identity. In wrestling with these issues, the granddaughters become the guardians of her story.
Compline is about confused mother/daughter relationships. It is about inter-generational empowerment and disempowerment. It is about hurts and resentments being reframed. It is about life happening.
Compline will make you laugh out loud. It will make you cry. But most of all, it will entertain you.
The author tells us there’s also plans for hard copies of the book.
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