Ozzie Rozzie
ISBN: 978-1-4116-6420-3
Next year will be the twentieth anniversary of the publication of my first and almost certainly best novel, Ozzie Rozzie. Perhaps it’s a novella, but I always thought a novella should be sweet, like Nutella, but no, it’s “a narrative prose fiction whose length is shorter than most novels, but longer than most novelettes and short stories.” So there.
Ozzie Rozzie, misfit country boy, confronts bullying with unexpected consequences, in this short story set in 1970s London suburbia. "Your details were dynamic and filled with imagery... the pacing magnificent.. Thank you for this wonderful story." - ME Strauss
What makes the story far less sweet than Nutella is that it’s full of swearing, and a tad risqué * as the mise-en-scène * is set in an accurate but fictionalised version of South Norwood High School, once a parlour of common education which I attended from age 11 to 13.
Just like SNHS, Ozzie Rozzie contains violence both physical and psychological (not giving too much away here) and has a story which unfolds around unexpected outcomes. I always wanted to write about the earthy truths which surrounded us and framed our future lives back then, and which also exposed the imaginative, graphic use of language in early adulthood and the useless bullying of average teachers, as per visited upon the young by a bunch of not-so-closet sadists. OK, some of the adults were nice, but many were not. And life was generally shit, except when it was exciting.
Ozzie Rozzie is takes place over twelve chapters, so I figured I would republish it here over as many weeks. I’ve stopped worrying about the swearing, I thought, that so long as it’s marked https://www.bbfc.co.uk/rating/18
… then perhaps SBSTCK wouldn’t object. Or they might. They shouldn’t do. Maybe I should just put it behind a paywall, demanding everyone chips in to read it - but I’d rather not. I could always give anyone who does subscribe the PDF version. You can get it from Amazon, as Kindle version, and you can get a paperback book from Lulu. Tell me what you would prefer, oh readers.
Ozzie Rozzie’s story is quite exciting, funny at times, moving at others, so people have told me over the nineteen years of its existence. So shall I spin it over 12 weeks and risk horrifying the straightest of prudes? Or shall I remind myself that this is 2024 and record the narrative using actual sound, just to give it a buzz?
[CAUTION: THIS STORY CONTAINS PROFANITY AND TRACES OF NUTS]
PS: * I include those two references for M. Short, my French teacher, qui m'inspire encore aujourd'hui.