Not Without My Neighbour
All Vic really wants is to sit on the bench with Theo, the reclusive, cowboy-booted neighbour. Theo, who dresses like he wandered out of a charity shop somewhere in the Wild West, smokes like it's 1975, and has an unsettling habit of talking about memory and mortality like most people talk about the weather. She certainly doesn’t want to go on a road trip to Spain, planned by her relentlessly organised younger sister, Angie.
Vic has lost her job prospects, much of her dignity, and any illusions she once had about being a functional adult — in roughly that order. So when Vic loses her driving licence too, she thinks she’s stumbled on the perfect excuse to foil Angie’s perfect plans. No licence. No driver. No trip. Except Angie has a solution: Theo can drive instead.
What follows is a chaotic, oddly tender trip across Spain with an overfed cat named Simon, ongoing sisterly warfare, and a man who counts his coffee beans before grinding them. Somewhere between the beaches and the breakdowns, Vic starts to understand what she’s actually running from — and what she might, after all, be able to hold onto.
Not Without My Neighbour is a wickedly funny, warm story about trying to run from your life, and ending up exactly where, and with exactly whom, you didn't know you needed to be.
