Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
The world of the solitary writer/novelist has been undercut and arguably abused in recent years. No longer celebrated by mass readership as thinkers and as people willing to scratch under the surface of observation, the artistry of the dispenser of words, wisdom, and wit has been arguably reduced to that of entertainer, a person to whom it seems is writing for a hobby; or at least that is how some sections of society and unfavourable book forums react.
Hope…there are many ways in which the reader and the writer can come together, but it requires more than just being a big name with an endorsement, or perhaps a team of willing, nameless, ghost writers, to keep the imagination working on overtime, of taking the reader to a place where they can witness the words becoming sentient, taking on and creating a world of their own; above all it takes the inclination of the one invested to assure themselves that the tale in their hand might not have the ending they dream of, that they are willing at times to find themselves disturbed by the merest glance of a sentence, that they accept that punishment and salvation are one and the same.
It is to Kit Derrick’s latest novel, Hope Is A Six Letter Word, that the judgement of time is expressed with succinct pressure, a decree of insight, and as the narrative caresses detail to which many who have found themselves finding fault with their own life almost alluring, so it is to the explanation of being lost in translation that the brightness, the quality and persuasion of the tale shines and captivates.
We have at one time, or another found ourselves floundering at the unintelligible conversations that pepper our lives, and it is perhaps, as Kit Derrick shows from behind the velvet curtain of the book, that our largest mistake in life is trying to rectify our youth with the uncertainty of middle age. We are not the people who once loved with abandon, and as the date with lost years takes on greater significance, so we aim to resurrect, to reconnect with that which we never understood in the first place.
Kit Derrick, once having invited the reader into his home, now proceeds to weave them a tale which leaves them desiring to make him a mainstay on their own shelves.
The reader insists that the writer be unafraid in their style and conviction; Kit Derrick stands out in front of the crowd, secure in his reasoning, and ready to withstand the modern conviction that story tellers are just entertainers, for in Hope Is A Six Letter Word what the reader will find is a conscious, an observer who deliberates over every word and meaning with wilful intent.
Ian D. Hall