Matthew James Hunt

I'm a huge fan of dining scenes in film and literature. Whatever the story, I just want to be right in there with them, enjoying the meal. So, it's no surprise to me that there are several dining scenes in I Am Not Gog. All of the dining locations are based on real eateries and their fictional names have allegorical significance. Let's have a little nibble at the most important ones...

The photo above is of Brookside Fish Bar in Hinckley, which our family used to frequent when I was a child (forty years ago). As far as I can remember, it was Dad's role to fetch the fish supper in his car if we were to indulge. It was like a Mum's night off. When I was a bit older, I'd drop by after school wit...

Here is an example of a boarded-up Edwardian terraced house in Grimsby, the likes of which served as a squat for Maggie and the Eriphions, where they held what Lydia calls their 'Mad-hatter's Tea Party'. To be fair, this party only went pear-shaped from Lydia's perspective, because everyone else in attendance drank magic-mushroom tea and were about to embark on an hallucinogenic trip. It probably went perfectly well for them.

In a wider shot you can see most of the houses here are boarded up. At the time this photograph was taken in 2006, only the one on the left and the white one, second from the end on the right, were occupied. Which of any of them might be 83 New Redlord Row, is up to you....

There are two particularly cruel scenes in the novel I Am Not Gog, and the second of them is also quite distasteful. I’m sorry about that, but they were both important to the story and partly based on real events.

The first involves a couple of nasty girls at school: Madie and Tates, the two bullies who set about ripping young Lydia’s false fingernails off. Their names are simple anagrams of two English words. If you want to cheat and see what they are anagrams of, I’ve put the solutions after the space at the bottom of this blog.

As ghastly as the scene is, it actually happened to the real-life person who inspired the character of Lydia. I used to work at one of the social projects she freq...

With Christmas approaching, it seems fitting to take the opportunity to share some insights about Lydia's night of clubbing at Christmas. As it involves numbers, I'll use it as an excuse to share all the other insights about numbers and dates in I Am Not Gog.

On the seventh day after meeting her, Joshua texts Lydia that he loves her. Seven weeks after meeting him, Lydia finally yields to his love at the nightclub. Seven months after meeting him, Joshua suffers that which would motivate her to take possession of her own liberty. This is an example of an underlying use of numbers to support the allegory, in this case centred around an incident in the nightclub.

The club, where Joshua finally w...

These three characters are to do with another word beginning with 'p': perception – the enabling of it, the lack of it, and the distortion of it.

All the names of characters that are given in I Am Not Gog mean something pertinent to their role in the story or the allegorical scheme. I’ve looked at almost all of the main characters’ names, now I’m turning to some of the minor characters, three of varying importance.

The first is Ruth the pigeon. It is Hebraic for ‘friend’. This particular bird is a creature that has unwittingly done Lydia a favour by drawing her attention to the builder’s sign on the scaffold, giving her Power’s telephone number. Lydia's perception and understanding of her...

Lydia’s busybody social worker, Sofie Duluti, is a minor character with probably the most complex name in the novel. It is first an anagram. I won’t spoil it by openly giving you the solution up front, but I've hidden it right at the bottom of this blog page should you want to check if your solution is right.

It is second a marriage of two disparate concepts, which delivers a whole sense that supports the anagram and what the social worker represents. This happened to be largely serendipitous, because the anagram came first and I then went looking to see what the components might accidentally mean, to make sure there wasn't any conflict with the intended meaning. That serendipity was itself...