Member-only story
BOOK REVIEW
Riding The High Road
An Intergenerational Rollercoaster
Riding the High Road is Penny Frances’s debut novel, but she has previously won prizes for her short fiction and has an impressive writing CV behind her. Her short stories have appeared in a host of literary magazines, including Mslexia, The Interpreter’s House, Dream Catcher, Horizon Review, Fictive Dream, and Toasted Cheese.
Although this is a debut novel, it is not the first that Penny Frances has written. A previous book was accepted by an agent and praised by publishers but they felt her subject matter was too downbeat. This decided her to write a more upbeat book.
Whilst mulling over new ideas, she thought about her son, then 12 years old. He had been conceived through donor insemination, and Penny Frances wondered if this would affect the way he saw himself in relation to his peer group as he grew up. Although her son’s biological father was involved in his life, she began to explore the way things might be if this was not the case.
Riding the High Road opens as Gethin, just 18, celebrates this milestone birthday with his mother, Pat. Gethin is at just the stage of adolescence and Pat is at just the stage of middle age that, try as they might, they cannot communicate on the same emotional waveband and continually rub each…
