When I retired in November 2019, I had three main objectives. To fly fish my way around the world in beautiful locations, to play my electric guitar better and to write a book I was proud of. Four months later, the global pandemic had put a stop to my travel plans, enthusiasm for learning the guitar over Zoom quickly waned so I was left with little alternative than to start writing. 

Two and a half years later, ‘Maybe It’s About Time’ is the product, a novel very much of its time and certainly one people seem to enjoy reading. Spending my previous twenty years as a Partner at Deloitte, the multinational professional services firm, might not be considered ideal preparation to write a good novel but it was the foundation for the book. It’s a world stuffed full of colossal egos and a sense of self-importance that goes way beyond the value it truly adds to our society. I thought it was fair game for poking fun at.

On face value, ‘Maybe It’s About Time’ is a satire of the world I used to work in seen through the eyes of its main character, Marcus Barlow, a man approaching a crossroads in his life, when his wealth and status are starting to mean less and less. The novel is set in the first four months of the Covid-19 pandemic in the UK, January to April 2020. As we were all living through those unprecedented times, I thought they would be a unique backdrop for a novel. We were being told by our leaders at the time that  ‘we’re all in this together’ when it became painfully clear that it wasn’t. This becomes the second theme of the book, wealth and social inequality where I introduce the second main character, Claire Halford, a single parent mother living in poverty, trying to raise her two small children on a meagre income and contemplating suicide.

For the first half of the book, the storylines for Marcus and Claire are developed in parallel, alternating chapters, hinged by the third character in the triangle, Gavin Douglas who is Claire’s social worker and lives opposite Marcus in their block of flats and is his weekly dining partner. In these early chapters, Marcus’ character trajectory is definitely downwards as a series of catastrophic events at work, centred around ‘Project Spearmint’ befall him. The events are satirised to an extreme where plausibility could be tested but never dismissed! Meanwhile, Claire trajectory is upward as she starts to rebuild her self-esteem and confidence.

All of the main characters in the novel are introduced by the end of the third chapter giving the reader every opportunity to read and watch their development, fully immersed in their lives and the challenges they face. The book is really a series of dialogues and conversations between the characters, low on descriptive narrative but high on humour, pace and sensitivity. In addition to the satire and social inequality themes, other topics introduced in the first half of the book are supermarket and food snobbery, veganism, commuting, loneliness and isolation, all of which are treated with a balance of whimsicality and tenderness. 

The three main characters first come together at a dinner party at Claire’s tiny flat organised by Gavin, who believes that Marcus and Claire meeting each other will have mutual benefits even though they live in completely separate worlds. From that moment, an unlikely friendship develops as they discover they have more in common with each other than they first thought. Irrespective of their different living standards, they share similar values and motivate each other to change their respective lives in different ways.

In the background to the emerging friendship between Marcus and Claire is the gathering pace of the pandemic which starts as a newspaper snippet in the first chapter but steamrollers through the book culminating in lockdown which has a critical impact on both characters.  Newspaper headlines and media broadcasts are used as milestones throughout the book’s timeline, keeping the reading in sync with the developments that were taking place across the UK during those times of uncertainty and fear. The introduction of real politicians and media commentators in the narrative adds to the authenticity of the story and the government’s handling of its response comes in for further satire. The book also has a soundtrack where pieces of music, which forms a large part of both Marcus and Claire’s life are used to add further dramatic effect.

Since its release in October 2022, ‘Maybe It’s About Time’ has gone from strength to strength. I’m incredibly proud of it. It’s been well received by readers both inside and outside the world of professional services which was always the intention. I simply wanted to write a good story that would appeal to readers of all ages and backgrounds and to generate feelings and emotions across the spectrum. I hope I have done just that.

So, what next? Apart from trying to bring ‘Maybe It’s About Time’ to a wider audience, the fly fishing trips have started again and the guitar gets strummed occasionally. More importantly, work on a sequel will start in early 2023. There appears to be a demand and I don’t want to disappoint. 

Some recent reviews

‘This debut Novel from Neil Boss is a masterpiece in creative writing. The numerous sub-plots are cleverly interwoven to bring about this phenomenal story set in early 2020 with the backdrop of the pandemic looming.’

‘A brilliant opening novel from Neil Boss. I cannot remember another novel where I was so glued to every page. In years to come, this could be used as a history book. It brilliantly captures the events, fears and thoughts of the days leading up to the virus arriving in the UK and the subsequent impact that it had.’

‘It’s not often that you come across a book that has you experiencing every emotion.’

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