![]() I’ll take five steps down my path, then I’ll go back inside. By the count of one, I’ll have both feet on my front doorstep. Diane and I decided that I would count backwards from twenty. The two become friends over jigsaw puzzles. Paul has his own struggles, and is in between careers. He drops in on Thursdays to make sure Meredith is OK. ![]() We catch up with Meredith when she has a new visitor – Paul, from Holding Hands. Meredith has support from a group online, StrengthInNumbers, where she makes friends with Celeste and talks to a counsellor, Diane, who conducts regular online sessions. She has her cat, Fred, and her best friend Sadie calls in regularly with her two young children so although the book is called Meredith, Alone, she still has people in her court. It just shows you how easy it is to cut yourself off from the outside world if want to. She works online as a freelance writer so she really has no need to go anywhere. Meredith has made her home a haven with restful colours and orders everything she needs online. The story weaves in the past with the present as we follow Meredith’s struggles to get out into the world again. Something has happened to Meredith to leave her traumatised and solitary, something which has cut her off from her mother and sister Fiona, once her closest pal. But I was soon hooked by the story of Meredith who hasn’t left her house in 1214 days – that’s three years and three months. ![]() ![]() It takes some skill to turn the life of an agoraphobic person into an interesting novel. ![]()
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