The Devil and the Deep Blue

The Urchin’s Progress is an everyman epic chronicling the changing fortunes of Miles Rouse over 50 years as he travels from fatherless urchin to fulfilled father. In three volumes, it traces a life haunted by both the father’s absence and the urchin abandoned by that same father. The Devil and the Deep Blue (Volume 2) (October 1978 – July 1933) continues the story as Miles sets out on the building of a dream - ditching his great opus, Torture Road, and moving unbelievably into fatherhood himself – only to find that even the bliss of home is subverted and overturned by that same haunting call of the urchin awaiting his father’s return. Endeavouring to quiet the urchin’s calls, Miles pursues a lead to someone whom he suspects is implicated in his father’s disappearance. When the lead casts doubt on his own paternity he hesitates in following up – only to find himself back with the wailing urchin. Normality it seems is to be in that state of painful wanting – but if this drives Miles to abandon even his marriage, can he really also let go the children he so needs to father?