A Fame of Two Halves by Kevin Mahoney

A Fame of Two Halves is the debut novel of Authortrek.com editor Kevin Mahoney. There is an exclusive extract of the novel on the Society of Young Publishers website.

For Elliot Gold, manager of the Duxford Ducks football team, life seems to be going from bad to worse. His job and his marriage both face imminent demise. He pins all his hopes on winning one last match.

But Elliot Gold is not a lucky man…

Drowning his sorrows with his parents in Malta, Elliot is suddenly offered a chance to resurrect his football career with a team he renames ‘The Maltese Falcons’. With the inspirational music of Spandau Ballet racing through his veins, Elliot attempts to reinvent himself. Will he woo the lovely Silvia? Can he save his parents’ marriage as their union also heads for the rocks? Will he ever win again?

"a tremendous first novel - wry, funny and clever. I hope it's the first of many"

- Joanne Harris, author of Chocolat

Buy the paperback of A Fame of Two Halves from Amazon.co.uk. You can also buy A Fame of Two Halves as an e-book via the Punked Books website for £2.99. PayPal provides secure payment via your debit/credit card. The novel is a 0.96MB pdf file.

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In 1998, I took a week off from work at Ottakars bookshop to write my debut novel, A Fame of Two Halves. Since the novel was about football, I set myself the deadline of completing it before the 1998 World Cup. So, in those 9 days, I wrote the sheer bulk of the story. In the intervening 10 years, I would periodically come back to look at the novel with fresh eyes, and to rewrite and edit where necessary.

The one aspect of the novel that I really struggled with over the years was the title. At first, influenced by Terry Pratchett, I tried to put a new, witty spin on the title of a film, such as The Fifth Elephant. So, for many years, the novel's title was the plural form of Dashiell Hammett's most famous book. However, I eventually decided that this was too lame. Since my protagonist's surname was the same as Spandau Ballet's most famous song - which is widely utilised as a sporting anthem - I decided to employ a few lyrics from that song to call the novel ‘Always Believing’. This also seemed appropriate, as one of Elliot's problems is that he lacks faith in himself. It was a couple of years before I realised that the lyrics were actually "Always Believe In" - which to my mind didn't make sense as a title on its own.

During this time, I encountered modern translations of old Anglo Saxon poems that very much seemed to fit Elliot's predicament, as the Anglo Saxon warrior's despair at being banished from his tribe seemed very much akin to Elliot's woe at being sacked from his football team, and thrown out the marital home. The Wanderer is the Anglo Saxon poem that resonates best with Elliot. However, although I considered using The Wanderer as the title, I rejected this as it had been used by too many other writers before me. I then considered using the cliche ‘A Game of Two Halves’, but had to reject this for much the same reason, although the novel did seem to be very much one of two halves, split between Duxford and Malta. Since Duxford's main opponents are Oxbridge, and cow metaphors resound throughout the novel, I considered employing ‘A Game of Two Calves’, although I rejected this as being too wacky and beside the point. I finally settled on A Fame of Two Halves, as a nice twist on the old cliché, and one that fitted the story of Elliot's fall from superstardom to ignominy, a la George Best, much better.

Chapter One – originally opened with the following quote from Michael J. Alexander’s translation of Anglo Saxon poem The Wanderer. Apparently, this is a translation that Alexander did as a young man, and with which he now finds some fault, as the translation is not exactly true to the original text. However, I really like this translation, as it really chimes with Elliot’s feelings as he’s banished from his teammates and his home. Unfortunately, I didn’t have time to ask for the rights before A Fame of Two Halves was published:

He knows who makes trial

How harsh and bitter is care for companion

to him who hath few friends to shield him.

Track ever taketh him, never the torqued gold,

not earthly glory, but cold heart’s cave.

He minds him of hall-men, of treasure-giving,

how in his youth his gold-friend

gave him to feast. Fallen all this joy.

“It never had occurred to him that the real reason why Wimbledon players went to see the men in white coats was that they were all nutters” – Chapter One, page 5 –this is a reference to the Wimbledon team of the 80s and 90s, who were known as The Crazy Gang

Mister Chadwick - Chapter One, page 5 – is a diabolical charracter who used to regularly appear in my short stories

The Duck and Cower – is the name of Elliot’s local. As you may imagine, it’s quite rough, although it’s name is derived from the fact that it’s in Duxford, which is very close to the snooty university town of Oxbridge

“Elliot had come to maturity in the late seventies, when no one had heard of a feminist movement, apart from the defenders at Arsenal” – Chapter One, page 6 – even though this quote mentions the 70s, it’s actually a reference to the later 11 year partnership between Tony Adams, Lee Dixon, Steve Bould, and Nigel Winterburn, who were probably the most coordinated back four in history, even though they played for “Boring, Boring Arsenal”

2001's Star Child “he did have some quite vivid memories. One that especially shone in his mind was that of a childhood holiday in Malta. It was the first time that he had ever been abroad” – Chapter One, page 6 – the first place I went abroad when I was a kid, in 1980, was to Malta, which no doubt influenced the writing of this book!

“To see the world beneath from a small womblike shell in the sky, just as that bloke did in 2001: A Space Odyssey” – Chapter One, page 7 – a reference to the end of Stanley Kubrick’s movie, which features a baby looking down on Earth from within its womb…

Mediterranean – Chapter One, page 7 – does indeed mean “in the middle of earth”. Tolkien’s Middle Earth was "the abiding place of men" - by this Tolkien meant that it is the physical world in which man lives out his life and destiny, as opposed to the unseen worlds, like Heaven or Hell. Coincidentally, Tolkien found this meaning of Middle Earth in several old Anglo Saxon texts such as The Wanderer: “... as now in various places / throughout this middle-earth ...” Just like me, Tolkien was very fond of The Wanderer, and utilised sections of it throughout his work

“I squash some ants” – Chapter One, page 8 - unfortunately, the kid originally torturing the ants were me. There really were ants in our hotel apartment

“Mister Spud’s been chipnapped again” - Chapter One, page 10 – Mister Spud is based upon a shop sign for a potato retailer in Stoke Road in Slough, which was forever being stolen. It was quite a cheery caricature of a potato. Unfortunately, according to Google Earth, the shop is no longer in business, and I haven’t been able to find a photo of the sign on the net

Jack Hoffman - Chapter One, page 10 – is, of course, named after E. T. A. Hoffmann, the hero of Offenbach’s opera The Tales of Hoffmann

James Buck - Chapter One, page 11 – one of Duxford United’s players, who moonlights as a fireman

ZX Rectum - Chapter One, page 13 – is the bastard offspring of Bill Gates and Clive Sinclair (inventor of the ZX Spectrum, a home computer much beloved by my generation, although I had a Commodore 64)

Chinese hopping vampire - Chapter One, page 13 – are very curious creatures. Terrifying, and yet comic at the same time, Chinese hopping vampires deserve to be more famous, as they are quite entertaining, as the hyperlink to YouTube reveals

King Midas - Chapter One, page 13 – famous for turning things into gold with his touch

Pseudohermaphroditism - Chapter One, page 16 – the condition of having indeterminate sexual organs, i.e. looking neither male nor female

“a shaggy and bedraggled calf mooed piteously from the top of a nearby block of flats” - Chapter One, page 17 – as a kid, I lived in Shaggy Calf Lane in Slough, which no doubt helped me generate this particular image

West Ham Pigs - Chapter One, page 19 – nothing against West Ham, it’s just that I thought in the 90s that several English sporting teams adopted American style nicknames, which I found ridiculous

“Okay, so I like cows!” - Chapter One, page 21 – this sequence quotes liberally from It’s A Wonderful Life, when James Stewart buys an oversized trunk in one of his bids to escape Bedford Falls

Mallard - Chapter One, page 21 – train that is the holder of the world speed record for a steam locomotive Mallard train , and one which I can remember drawing quite well when I was a kid

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