by Nathan Filer
I could keep on going, but you know what I’m like. The ink running dry from my typewriter ribbon. This place shutting down. That’s enough small print to get anyone thinking.
So I’ll stack these pages with the rest of them, and leave it all behind. Writing about the past is a way of reliving it, a way of seeing it unfold all over again. We place memories on pieces of paper to know they will always exist. But this story has never been a keepsake – it’s finding a way to let go. I don’t know the ending, but I know what happens next. I walk along the corridor towards the sound of a Goodbye Party. But I won’t get that far. I’ll take a left, then a right, and I will push open the front door with both hands.
I have nothing else to do today.
It’s a beginning.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank my parents and sister, who I know will be so proud to see this book on the shelves. I am blessed to have such a supportive family.
I’m grateful to everyone who has read my writing and shared their thoughts. That is no small offering. It is—I’ve learnt—how a novel comes to exist. Thank you Kev Hawkins and Hazel Ryder, who read my earliest drafts, and whose words of encouragement remained with me. Tanya Atapattu, for so many reasons—but especially for your kind encouragement whenever it was most needed. And Phil Bambridge for your generous contribution to the science lesson in the Prodrome chapter.
A very special thank you to Emma Anderson for your incisive editorial notes, and unfailingly helpful advice.
I completed the first draft of this novel on the Creative Writing MA at Bath Spa University. Thank you again to my parents, who helped support me financially during this time, and also to my then flatmate, Samantha Barron, who endured every vicissitude of my studies with me. Thank you to my manuscript tutor, Tricia Wastvedt, and to my other tutors and fellow students, not least Samantha Harvey, Gerard Woodward, John Jennings, and Nick Stott.
Thank you to Ellie Gee, for helping me explore Matthew’s sketches. And to the artist, Charlotte Farmer, who has brought them to life in these pages.
I am hugely indebted to my literary agent Sophie Lambert of Tibor Jones & Associates, whose guidance – both on and off the page – was invaluable; to my editor, Louisa Joyner, and the wonderful team at HarperFiction, who turned my hopes of a book into a book; and to Nichole Argyres and the team at SMP, who with such care helped to shape this US edition.
Lastly, mostly, Emily Parker. For all of the endless reasons, this novel is dedicated to you.
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
WHERE THE MOON ISN’T. Copyright © 2013 by Nathan Filer. All rights reserved. For information address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
Illustrations by Charlotte Farmer
www.stmartins.com
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Filer, Nathan.
[Shock of the Fall]
Where the Moon Isn’t: a novel / Nathan Filer.—1st U.S. Edition.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-1-250-02698-9 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-1-250-02699-6 (e-book)
1. Schizophrenia—Patients—Fiction. 2. Life change events—Fiction. 3. Psychological fiction. I. Title.
PR6106.I44S56 2013
823'.92—dc23
2013025459
First published in Great Britain under the title The Shock of the Fall by HarperCollinsPublishers
First U.S. Edition: November 2013
eISBN 9781250026996
First eBook edition: September 2013