Literature & Fiction
![Bethan Roberts - [object Object] author](https://res.cloudinary.com/readsomnia/image/upload/authors/a_a_bethan_roberts.jpg)
My Policeman (Movie Tie-In): A Novel
Soon to be a motion picture starring Harry Styles, Emma Corrin, and David Dawson, an exquisitely told, tragic tale of thwarted love.
"Stunning…fraught and honest." -New York Times Book Review
It is in 1950's Brighton that Marion first catches sight of Tom. He teaches her to swim, gently guiding her through the water in the shadow of the city's famous pier and Marion is smitten-determined her love alone will be enough for them both. A few years later near the Brighton Museum, Patrick meets Tom. Patrick is besotted, and opens Tom's eyes to a glamorous, sophisticated new world of art, travel, and beauty. Tom is their policeman, and in this age it is safer for him to marry Marion and meet Patrick in secret. The two lovers must share him, until one of them breaks and three lives are destroyed.
In this evocative portrait of midcentury England, Bethan Roberts reimagines the real life relationship the novelist E. M. Forster had with a policeman, Bob Buckingham, and his wife. My Policeman is a deeply heartfelt story of love's passionate endurance, and the devastation wrought by a repressive society.
"Stunning…fraught and honest." -New York Times Book Review
It is in 1950's Brighton that Marion first catches sight of Tom. He teaches her to swim, gently guiding her through the water in the shadow of the city's famous pier and Marion is smitten-determined her love alone will be enough for them both. A few years later near the Brighton Museum, Patrick meets Tom. Patrick is besotted, and opens Tom's eyes to a glamorous, sophisticated new world of art, travel, and beauty. Tom is their policeman, and in this age it is safer for him to marry Marion and meet Patrick in secret. The two lovers must share him, until one of them breaks and three lives are destroyed.
In this evocative portrait of midcentury England, Bethan Roberts reimagines the real life relationship the novelist E. M. Forster had with a policeman, Bob Buckingham, and his wife. My Policeman is a deeply heartfelt story of love's passionate endurance, and the devastation wrought by a repressive society.
Editorial Reviews
An Irish Times Book of the Year
"Stunning...overdue in becoming a sensation...Roberts's messy collision of desires and drives leads to thwarted dreams, heartbreak, betrayal and a prison sentence. It's a story as old as time, but, to my mind, it's never been told so effectively, principally because Roberts invests us emotionally in both sides of the tug-of-war...It's not a happy story. It's better than that, fraught and honest." -New York Times Book Review
"A powerful story of forbidden love, regret, and living as your true self." -Vanity Fair
"Roberts beautifully captures the devastation of being unable or unwilling to live in one's truth…A melancholy story about love, loss, and unnecessary suffering." -Kirkus Reviews
"Complex and nuanced exploration of a love triangle…a moving depiction of human passions, frailties, and struggles." -Publisher's Weekly
"A humane and evocative portrait of a time when lives were destroyed by intolerance." -The Guardian
"A moving story of longing and frustration." -The Observer
"Bethan Roberts is a fearless writer." -Louise Welsh, author of The Cutting Room, on The Good Plain Cook
"Stunning...overdue in becoming a sensation...Roberts's messy collision of desires and drives leads to thwarted dreams, heartbreak, betrayal and a prison sentence. It's a story as old as time, but, to my mind, it's never been told so effectively, principally because Roberts invests us emotionally in both sides of the tug-of-war...It's not a happy story. It's better than that, fraught and honest." -New York Times Book Review
"A powerful story of forbidden love, regret, and living as your true self." -Vanity Fair
"Roberts beautifully captures the devastation of being unable or unwilling to live in one's truth…A melancholy story about love, loss, and unnecessary suffering." -Kirkus Reviews
"Complex and nuanced exploration of a love triangle…a moving depiction of human passions, frailties, and struggles." -Publisher's Weekly
"A humane and evocative portrait of a time when lives were destroyed by intolerance." -The Guardian
"A moving story of longing and frustration." -The Observer
"Bethan Roberts is a fearless writer." -Louise Welsh, author of The Cutting Room, on The Good Plain Cook
Readers Top Reviews
SweetnessBrooke O
Book came in good condition and on time. I been looking for this book for a few years now ever since a friend recommended it to me. Then when I heard they were making it to a movie, I started looking for it again. I want to read it before the movie comes out. I was so excited for the movie and even more excited for it when they announced Harry Styles was starring in it. Can't wait to read it and watch then movie when it comes out.
Holly La PatMelis
I didn't expect a happy little tale ... and it’s a good thing. Bethan Roberts paints a sad picture of a romantic triangle in 1950s England, when being gay could literally get you beaten, jailed or killed. The central protagonist, Marion, is hopelessly in love with Tom, beginning in her early teens, although no romance develops at that time. Apparently no other man ever enters her mind, despite years of separation. That's sad enough to begin with. When they reconnect as adults, a still-smitten Marion sets out to win Tom, although he's rarely much more than friendly. When they finally start actually dating, Tom's new friend Patrick often comes along, and Tom seems very enamored of Patrick. The first quarter of the book ends with Tom proposing to Marion at last ... in Patrick’s apartment, thoughtfully lent to Tom for the occasion. Warning bells, anyone? As readers we already know that Tom and Patrick are involved, and the next section of the book tells Patrick’s side of the story. He’s already come to terms with his sexuality in a way that Tom hasn’t yet, and his attitude toward Marion is friendly on the outside but calculating on the inside. This makes a lot of his actions less than sympathetic. But admittedly, he’s in a no-win situation himself, and his narrative is more interesting than Marion's. I won't share the rest of the plot except to say that it takes some devastating turns and does have some emotional payoffs. Bethan Roberts is a skillful writer ... but although I'm a patient reader, I felt the story could have been better paced. We spend an awfully long time experiencing Marion's misery while the situation develops very slowly. Again, I didn't expect a happy little tale, but I still couldn't help feeling that the telling could have been less static and dreary.
Joel YelamoSakura
the package arrived today. sorry for the inconvenience
JJoel YelamoSakur
This story is very beautifully written from the details all the way down to the dialogue. I cried so many times while reading this, more than I’d like to admit. I loved this book so much.
Short Excerpt Teaser
Peacehaven, October 1999
I considered starting with these words: I no longer want to kill you-because I really don't-but then decided you would think this far too melodramatic. You've always hated melodrama, and I don't want to upset you now, not in the state you're in, not at what may be the end of your life.
What I mean to do is this: write it all down, so I can get it right. This is a confession of sorts, and it's worth getting the details correct. When I am finished, I plan to read this account to you, Patrick, because you can't answer back anymore. And I have been instructed to keep talking to you. Talking, the doctors say, is vital if you are to recover.
Your speech is almost destroyed, and even though you are here in my house, we communicate on paper. When I say on paper, I mean pointing at flashcards. You can't articulate the words, but you can gesture toward your desires: drink, lavatory, sandwich. I know you want these things before your finger reaches the picture, but I let you point anyway, because it is better for you to be independent.
It's odd, isn't it, that I'm the one with pen and paper now, writing this-what shall we call it? It's hardly a journal, not of the type you once kept. Whatever it is, I'm the one writing, while you lie in your bed, watching my every move.
You've never liked this stretch of coast, calling it suburbia-on-sea, the place the old go to gaze at sunsets and wait for death. Wasn't this area-exposed, lonely, windswept, like all the best British seaside settlements-known as Siberia in that terrible winter of '63? It's not quite that bleak here now, although it's still as uniform; there's even some comfort, I find, in its predictability. Here in Peacehaven, the streets are the same, over and over: modest bungalow, functional garden, oblique sea view.
I was very resistant to Tom's plans to move here. Why would I, a lifelong Brighton resident, want to live on one floor, even if our bungalow was called a Swiss chalet by the estate agent? Why would I settle for the narrow aisles of the local Co-op, the old-fat stench of Joe's Pizza and Kebab House, the four funeral parlors, a pet shop called Animal Magic and a dry cleaner's where the staff are, apparently, "London trained"? Why would I settle for such things after Brighton, where the cafes are always full, the shops sell more than you could possibly imagine, let alone need, and the pier is always bright, always open and often slightly menacing?
No. I thought it an awful idea, just as you would have done. But Tom was determined to retire to a quieter, smaller, supposedly safer place. I think, in part, he'd had more than enough of being reminded of his old beats, his old busyness. One thing a bungalow in Peacehaven does not do is remind you of the world's busyness. So here we are, where no one is out on the street before nine thirty in the morning or after nine thirty at night, save a handful of teenagers who smoke outside the pizza place. Here we are in a two-bedroom bungalow (it is not a Swiss chalet, it is not), within easy reach of the bus stop and the Co-op, with a long lawn to look out on and a whirligig washing line and three outdoor buildings (shed, garage, greenhouse). The saving grace is the sea view, which is indeed oblique-it's visible from the side bedroom window. I've given this bedroom to you, and have arranged your bed so you may see the glimpse of the sea as much as you like. I've given all this to you, Patrick, despite the fact that Tom and I never before had our own view. From your Chichester Terrace apartment, complete with Regency finishings, you enjoyed the sea every day. I remember the view from your apartment very well, even though I rarely visited you: the Volk's railway, the Duke's Mound gardens, the breakwater with its crest of white on windy days, and of course the sea, always different, always the same. Up in our terraced house on Islingword Street, all Tom and I saw were our own reflections in the neighbors' windows. But still. I wasn't keen to leave that place.
So I suspect that when you arrived here from the hospital a week ago, when Tom lifted you from the car and into your chair, you saw exactly what I did: the brown regularity of the pebble dash, the impossibly smooth plastic of the double-glazed door, the neat conifer hedge around the place, and all of it would have struck terror into your heart, just as it had in mine. And the name of the place: The Pines. So inappropriate, so unimaginative. A cool sweat probably oozed from your neck and your shirt suddenly felt uncomfortable. Tom wheeled you along the front path. You would have noticed that each slab was a perfectly even piece of pinkish-gray concrete. As I put the key i...
I considered starting with these words: I no longer want to kill you-because I really don't-but then decided you would think this far too melodramatic. You've always hated melodrama, and I don't want to upset you now, not in the state you're in, not at what may be the end of your life.
What I mean to do is this: write it all down, so I can get it right. This is a confession of sorts, and it's worth getting the details correct. When I am finished, I plan to read this account to you, Patrick, because you can't answer back anymore. And I have been instructed to keep talking to you. Talking, the doctors say, is vital if you are to recover.
Your speech is almost destroyed, and even though you are here in my house, we communicate on paper. When I say on paper, I mean pointing at flashcards. You can't articulate the words, but you can gesture toward your desires: drink, lavatory, sandwich. I know you want these things before your finger reaches the picture, but I let you point anyway, because it is better for you to be independent.
It's odd, isn't it, that I'm the one with pen and paper now, writing this-what shall we call it? It's hardly a journal, not of the type you once kept. Whatever it is, I'm the one writing, while you lie in your bed, watching my every move.
You've never liked this stretch of coast, calling it suburbia-on-sea, the place the old go to gaze at sunsets and wait for death. Wasn't this area-exposed, lonely, windswept, like all the best British seaside settlements-known as Siberia in that terrible winter of '63? It's not quite that bleak here now, although it's still as uniform; there's even some comfort, I find, in its predictability. Here in Peacehaven, the streets are the same, over and over: modest bungalow, functional garden, oblique sea view.
I was very resistant to Tom's plans to move here. Why would I, a lifelong Brighton resident, want to live on one floor, even if our bungalow was called a Swiss chalet by the estate agent? Why would I settle for the narrow aisles of the local Co-op, the old-fat stench of Joe's Pizza and Kebab House, the four funeral parlors, a pet shop called Animal Magic and a dry cleaner's where the staff are, apparently, "London trained"? Why would I settle for such things after Brighton, where the cafes are always full, the shops sell more than you could possibly imagine, let alone need, and the pier is always bright, always open and often slightly menacing?
No. I thought it an awful idea, just as you would have done. But Tom was determined to retire to a quieter, smaller, supposedly safer place. I think, in part, he'd had more than enough of being reminded of his old beats, his old busyness. One thing a bungalow in Peacehaven does not do is remind you of the world's busyness. So here we are, where no one is out on the street before nine thirty in the morning or after nine thirty at night, save a handful of teenagers who smoke outside the pizza place. Here we are in a two-bedroom bungalow (it is not a Swiss chalet, it is not), within easy reach of the bus stop and the Co-op, with a long lawn to look out on and a whirligig washing line and three outdoor buildings (shed, garage, greenhouse). The saving grace is the sea view, which is indeed oblique-it's visible from the side bedroom window. I've given this bedroom to you, and have arranged your bed so you may see the glimpse of the sea as much as you like. I've given all this to you, Patrick, despite the fact that Tom and I never before had our own view. From your Chichester Terrace apartment, complete with Regency finishings, you enjoyed the sea every day. I remember the view from your apartment very well, even though I rarely visited you: the Volk's railway, the Duke's Mound gardens, the breakwater with its crest of white on windy days, and of course the sea, always different, always the same. Up in our terraced house on Islingword Street, all Tom and I saw were our own reflections in the neighbors' windows. But still. I wasn't keen to leave that place.
So I suspect that when you arrived here from the hospital a week ago, when Tom lifted you from the car and into your chair, you saw exactly what I did: the brown regularity of the pebble dash, the impossibly smooth plastic of the double-glazed door, the neat conifer hedge around the place, and all of it would have struck terror into your heart, just as it had in mine. And the name of the place: The Pines. So inappropriate, so unimaginative. A cool sweat probably oozed from your neck and your shirt suddenly felt uncomfortable. Tom wheeled you along the front path. You would have noticed that each slab was a perfectly even piece of pinkish-gray concrete. As I put the key i...
