Worlds of Paul Jessup

How many times does this novel begin? A lot! Very many. It’s a book with beginnings, after all.

Excerpt-

Our story started after her first marriage, after her first divorce. Like all good stories it started with a map- let me show you which map, I’ve got it right here. It’s rolled up tight, so let’s take a moment and unravel it, shall we?

I know, I know. It’s not your regular map. It’s not the kind with labels and diagrams. But it’s a map none the less. A map of text. A map of stories.

Lady Birdbones’s first husband had left her after ten years of devoted love and marriage. She kept to their cliff carved house, kept to her kids while he was out on the beaches with the other men of the island, fishing in the glass god sea with bare backs glittering in the dawn light, hooks and nets and spears launched from shoulders and into the salty blue green spray. Beneath the water swam the translucent swarms of jellyfish and the flickering gold and blue of the lightning fish, taunting them with their tasty flesh.

This life wasn’t enough for him. She wasn’t enough for him. He wanted more, he wanted younger, he wanted prettier. So he took after a girl from the village under the cliffs, close to the beaches. A cute little thing, about half the age of Lady Birdbones.

Perky, idiotic, air headed, and willing to do whatever he wanted and asked for. Short cropped hair the gold and blue of the lightning fish, with dull eyes that reflected her dull and airless personality. She was about as interesting to talk to as a rag doll, and didn’t seem to care that people only appreciated her for her looks, her body, and her manner of dancing.