Consider The Lilies

Carol Fenlon
Impress Books, paperback, £7.99

Reviewed by Amanda DeAngeles

'...Sometimes people just come up and give her things. Sometimes it's money, and if it was just that you could understand it because they feel sorry for her, but sometimes it's pieces of jewellery they're wearing or a toy they've just bought for their kid. She just looks at them and they come over and give her things. It's weird.'

This is a formidable story, which explores humanity through the eyes of a homeless man (Jack the Hermit) who once led a professional, 'conventional' lifestyle, that is until he took to the demon drink.

Living rough on the streets of Liverpool, in pain and bound to his prosthetic leg, Hermit Jack is forced to share temporary adequate lodgings with several misfits.

If you ever wondered how it is possible that the great unwashed even exist in a society of government benefits and social workers, Consider the Lilies will tantalise your thoughts.

Author Carol Fenlon employs remarkable, eloquent use of language to convey non-language; merging descriptive of instinctual and learned intelligence into a non-fantastical realm of a few character's melancholic life experiences. This most unusual of communities forms a natural way to strategically serve one another.

Resounding hopes and curiosities stream through every page.

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