Truestory

A mother tethered to her home—by an autistic son who’s tethered to his computer—yearns for freedom in this “sharply observed” novel: “A terrific read.” —The Herald

Alice’s life is dictated by her autistic son, Sam, who refuses to leave their remote Lancashire farm. Her only escape is two hours in Lancaster on Tuesday afternoons.

Then one day, her husband brings rootless wanderer Larry to the farm to embark on a money-making scheme. Alice is hostile—but Larry beguiles Sam with tales of travel in the outside world and, soon, Alice begins to fall for him, too. By turns blackly comic, heartbreaking, and heartwarming, Truestory looks at what happens when sacrifice slithers towards martyrdom, and how even when we feel trapped in our lives, we sometimes have more options than we realise.

“Moving but never mawkish, and ultimately hopeful, providing a sympathetic portrait of a family struggling with autism in straitened times. Sam’s on-line interactions with a motley group of friends are laugh-out-loud funny.” —Sunday Mirror

“[Simpson’s] writing is vivid, perceptive and acute.” —James Robertson, Walter Scott Prize–winning author of News of the Dead