When Albert Jackson, a middle-aged school teacher, catches a glimpse of
the infinite universe and his own tiny insignificance he cannot shake
himself free of regret for a life all but squandered. In a blind and
demented attempt to salvage something from his life, he sets off,
half-lucidly, on a libertine mission to reclaim life, to live it
exclusively on his terms. But the wild and sinister crime he plots, so
characterised by delusion, sets him on a path to irreversible
destruction.
Incarcerated after his crime, at the once prestigious Reil Institute,
and in a bid to make spiritual and cosmic amends, Albert Jackson employs
the guile of a local novelist, Charlie Vaughan, to tell his story. In
the telling of Albert's story, Charlie drives the narrative onward and
backward, forcing Albert to confront the horrors of his crime. When the
inadequacy of Albert's initial confession forces Charlie to search
further afield, he must cede control of the narrative to a range of
other narrators too, among them key witnesses to the events leading up
to Albert's crime and a strange third-person account composed by Albert
himself.
Slipping is a darkly humorous novel about life and love, ambition,
bitter disappointment and the cost of committing the unforgivable.
