The Dutch Uncle: Excerpt # 1

The following text is an excerpt from my National Novel Writing Month (nanowrimo) effort. Excerpts appear in no particular order.

The Dutch Uncle tells the story of Crijn, his sister Mariëlle, her former landlord Jasper and his daughter Harriet (Harry). It is the story of lost loves, forgotten chances and the problems people create for themselves and others.

You know you changed when your wife died. We all change, all the time, but when we lose someone we love, it changes you the most, more than any other thing. It’s not just them who die. There’s a ‘we’ an ‘us’ that dies too, the ‘you and me’ part. We go from being an us to being I and it doesn’t make any sense. No one introduces you with the word AND followed by another name anymore. No one says, ‘oh hi, these are my friends Jazz and Billie’ They just say ‘oh this is Jazz’ and you have to deal with the fact that you are no longer part of an ‘and’. It’s just you, all of you, and you feel like your half of what you once were.

COPYRIGHT © 2017 GRANT FENTON – THE DUTCH UNCLE – ALL RIGHTS RESERVED