Alphabet

Simon Austen has the names people have called him tattooed all over his body. Dumb Cunt. Waste of Space. A Threat to Women. Murderer. Simon Austen has strangled his girlfriend. For the next thirteen years, Simon Austen will be serving life. Barely out of his teens, his past a grim assembly of foster homes, Simon is cagey, reserved, and highly intelligent. He's been told he has trouble relating to women. But what kind of woman would want to relate to him? Determined to resolve his issues on his own terms, and at great personal risk, Simon begins writing illicit letters to women under assumed identities. And though short-lived, his letter-writing triggers a terrifying process of self-reconstruction. "Who is Simon Austen," he is forced to ask, and "who do his psychiatrists want him to become?" A jolting portrait of modern prison regimes, Alphabet is the story of a man's uncertain and often-harrowing journey towards rehabilitation. PRAISE FOR KATHY PAGE "Moody, shape-shifting, provocative, and always as compelling as a strong light at the end of a road you hesitate to walk down ...but will." --Amy Bloom, author of Where the God of Love Hangs Out "I can't remember the last time I was so compelled, impressed, and unsettled by the emotional world of a novel."--Sarah Waters, author of Tipping the Velvet "Kathy Page is a massive talent: wise, smart, very funny, and very humane."--Barbara Gowdy, author of Helpless