Wide Open

Author(s): Nicola Barker

Location(s): Isle of Sheppey

Genre(s): Fiction

Era(s): Modern

Wide Open is set on the Isle of Sheppey, “a strange place, flat and empty like the moon.” On the island is a nudist beach, a nature reserve, a wild boar farm and not much else. The landscape is bare, but the characters in are brim-full. There’s Luke, who specialises in dot-to-dot pornography, and lippy Lily, just 17 and full of outrageous anger. Jim and Nathan end up on Sheppey too, as well as the mysterious figure of Ronnie who is “plain as a boiled sweet” but whose eyes are “deep, complex, dark ringed”.

Each one is drifting in turbulent, emotional currents, fighting the rip tide of a past, bleak with secrets and fear. “Hell wasn’t black after all. It was an endless, hollow, grey colour and it felt slippery. Nathan could find no finger holds. Even though his hands were still small. He was 8 years old and there was nothing to cling onto.” As an adult Nathan works in a Lost Property department, an irony that is almost brutal in its compassion.

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