Paperback, 311 pages, W150mm x H230mm
Set in Birmingham, The News Where You Are tells the funny, touching
story of Frank, a local TV news presenter. Beneath his awkwardly corny
screen persona, Frank is haunted by disappearances: the mysterious hit
and run that killed his predecessor Phil Smethway; the demolition of
his father’s post-war brutalist architecture; and the unmarked passing
of those who die alone in the city.
Frank struggles to make sense of
these absences while having to report endless local news stories of
holes opening up in people’s gardens and trying to cope with his
resolutely miserable mother.
The result is that rare thing: a
page-turning novel which asks the big questions in an accessible way,
and is laugh-out-loud funny, genuinely moving and ultimately uplifting.