Walking Backwards for Christmas: A Tale of Woe from Soggyhall: Volume 1 (Reggie Stone) - Softcover

The first book of the Reggie Stone series, set between the years 1960 and 1976, following Reg from ages 8 to 24, as he has a series of increasingly wilder magical adventures, first in England's West Midlands and, from the mid-1960s on, in California, particularly in Los Angeles, even as Reggie comes of age in the tumultuous '60s and early '70s. Though it's not exclusively a Christmas story, this first book has a definite holiday flavor. It’s Christmas 1960, in the wettest winter England’s known in living memory, and eight-year old Reggie Stone is forced to spend it in “Soggyhall” – the less than kind name Reggie’s given to his grandmother’s home in Solihull. Once warm and welcoming, it has become dark, drafty and dreary, water dripping down the walls, but none of it darker than his grandmother’s mood, in mourning since his grandfather’s death. But ... adventure can be found anywhere and Reggie's new best friend from India insists on joining him. Sanjit "Stan" Gupta is curious about this strange tradition of "Christmas." Together, the boys manage to turn this potentially dismal Christmas into something magical – but not before a strange visit to a “no-man’s land” between the worlds of the living and the dead, a lesson in how different religions can elucidate, enrich and enhance each other, and a visit from a rather unsettling angel. The story is told by Reg, Reggie’s 24-year-old Americanized self, now facing a new dark, arid period in his life, wondering if he can reach into the past, to claim the magic one more time.

G.H. McCallum's love for music, writing, history, fantasy, science fiction and magic realism has culminated in this first published novelette "Walking Backwards for Christmas: A Tale of Woe from Soggyhall." An intense study of drama and music composition led him to participate on "Spare Change Radio Theatre" as a writer and performer. His life experience as songwriter/bassist/vocalist in a small host of Progressive Rock and Power-pop bands lends a musical note to his writing. Look for this common thread amongst all his future books.