Matthew James Hunt

[Spoiler alert]

When I set about writing this particular blog, I hadn’t realised there were five ‘fields’ in the novel to talk about. I was vaguely thinking about two or three, but it seems they’re more of a theme than that. Each of them were scenes of pivotal moments in Lydia's life.

First, there are the school playing fields at Great Mounts College, where Lydia was saved from the bullies, Madie and Tates. The college and its fields were based on my own college at Hinckley, John Cleveland College, where, it so happens, I overheard the idea that inspired the awful events on the recreation ground later in the same chapter.

Second, that recreation ground. It was based on the real rec behind B...

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...

In real life, I witnessed him begin the slow process of death by many mini-strokes. In the novel, he represents Moses’ right-hand man.



His name is a direct reference to Joshua of the Old Testament, the man who led the Israelites into the Promised Land after forty years wandering in the wilderness. That man was known as Joshua, son of Nun. The Hebrew name ‘Nun’ means either ‘fish’ or a type of fish. I simply modernised and translated it to Joshua Fish.



As a contemporary friend of Lydia, he tells her about his unusual childhood, raised by an old guy acting as an informally adoptive guardian. That unnamed fellow, who we learn used to ‘lay down the law a bit’, is a reference to Moses, to whom...