Slipping — John Toomey

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.