Sisyphus Unleashed

Sisyphus Unleashed is a comic, nostalgic and often tragic look back at the lives of a small mining community in the eighties. The Live Aid Concert acts as a backdrop to the story in which the past catches up with a diverse collection of characters. Dean Swift finishes a night shift hoping to spend a weekend escaping his humdrum existence with drink, friends and unfulfilled fantasies. Over the next twenty-four hours his interactions with friends and family are revealed. Myfanwy is hiding his HIV status; Alex is suicidal following the death of his son; Podge is on the run from her abusive ex; Colin finds meaning in sexual encounters and belonging with a gang of football hooligans. As Dean searches for meaning and the chance of happiness, infidelities are revealed, old scores are settled and violence erupts all of which expose the cracks in the formerly tight-knit mining community. The book is the first of a trilogy, each set several years apart which, through realistic but fictional characters and intertwined stories, charts the changes in a small ex-mining community from Thatcherite Britain to Brexit.