Intrigue

The orderly suburban life of a 1950s English town is turned on its head when the teenage daughter of one of the residents writes a steamy bestseller featuring characters obviously based on the local population. They begin to see themselves and their neighbours in a surprising new light.—Jeremy Perkins {J-26}

The Hallidays are a relatively happy and loving middle class family living in the British suburbs, but like most families have their squabbles. The family patriarch, Edward Halliday, a corporate accountant, is always openly telling seventeen year old daughter, Jo Halliday, a hairdresser apprentice who is not given much to do, that she should be more like his extremely efficient secretary, Millicent Jones, who is not much older than Jo, the comparison which Jo understands and doesn't mind. Slightly scattered Janet Halliday, the family matriarch, is secretly learning to drive, which she will probably never master but doesn't realize, her teacher being family friend, currently unemployed Ian Howard, a casual boyfriend before she met and married Edward. Janet's spinster sister, Gladys Worth, also lives with them, she the assistant to Dr. Henry Manners. Gladys' bravada masks her shyness, so shy she is afraid to tell Dr. Manners that she has feelings for him. He is also a shy person resulting in few patients, which he always uses to joke that it allows him more time for golf. And Beryl is the Hallidays' day maid who is always griping about something interfering with her work. Edward, Janet, Gladys, Dr. Manners, Miss Jones, and Ian don't know why all of a sudden they are getting stares from people, and that they are getting much more attention than usual. It's because they are the last to know that Jo has had a novel published, Naked Revolt, it a bestseller and Book of the Month. While Jo has changed the names, the characters in the book all resemble the aforementioned in their daily situations, she however making up the stories, the characters who lack any morals in their debauchery, those stories, in turn, which some of the townsfolk may believe to be reality. The one person who knows that she is blurring the lines of reality and pure fantasy is famed young playwright, Robert Hughes, who, much in the same situation, takes reality to an extreme level for his plays in knowing what the audience wants, he wanting to turn Naked Revolt into his next stage success. What Robert is also aware of but which Jo may not is that there is some kernel of truth to her stories.—Huggo