Mary's Man

When Robert Christmas is young he loses his mother in a car accident and a year or so later loses his father too, in a further somewhat freakish accident. Robbie's been living in a Welfare Home until a teenager - so what are his prospects for any kind of fulfilling life? The story of Robert Christmas will grab your attention and hold it till you reach the final pages of this unusual novel. ‘Robbie’ or ‘Socker’ is very human, funny and relatable and since he’s a natural leader, people gravitate to him. ‘Mary’s Man’ is best described as an ‘apocalyptic novel’. It has its earthy bits but isn’t erotic. It has amusing incidents aplenty, romance, raging forest fires, awesome floods, stupendous earthquakes, financial catastrophes, strange happenings, even a “Chicago piano”, but above all it has some serious warnings for all of us. These are woven around the central character’s ups and downs and the activities of the novel’s notorious ‘black hat’.