His dry, self-reflective perspective on events is a welcome one, and although he’s undeniably flawed, it’s easy to invest in his redemption arc. Right away it’s possible to hear Ben’s voice, droll and self-critical, and that’s one of the novel’s considerable selling points – he’s the sort of character that you’re more than willing to spend a whole book with. If you’re thinking that I’m the one who comes off looking like a dick, I couldn’t disagree with you. The first thing I saw was the wheelchair. The novel opens with Goddard being recognised by wheelchair-bound Polly in a pub: Jowitt has a talent for writing warm, witty fiction that teems with empathy for its characters, and in this book she’s played to her strengths, keeping her narrative grounded in her core trio. It’s more interested in small-scale redemption, exploring the gracelessness of the modern world and what people can do to resist it, and it’s all the better for that. The biggest surprise in Kathleen Jowitt’s self-published novel A Spoke in the Wheel, the story of disgraced cyclist (and doper) Ben Goddard’s attempt to rebuild his life, is how much of the plot is concerned with things other than cycling.
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