I don’t get this.
I don’t have anything to worry about. I’m fifteen! And in Year 10! I should be thinking about the way Samantha keeps looking at me, nursing that crush she’s had on me since primary school.
Or about Gabriella, who’s so cool and seems interested.
Or the Boland Fellowship, an award given out for academic excellence that everybody thinks I could win.
Or about my best friend Ash, and the way he’s sullen about his arguing parents, or our friend Riley, who’s becoming a bigger and bigger troublemaker, although we don’t know why.
But when I wake up one night, terrified, it starts a journey of trying to find out what’s wrong. I can’t go to Mum and Dad. We don’t talk about things like this. And kids at school would make fun of me if they knew. So it’s scurrying around like nothing’s wrong, while everything’s coming apart.
I don’t get this.
Set in the 1980s, a fifteen-year-old unnamed Greek boy is completely confused about what is going on as he tries to fend off what we now know as anxiety, panic attacks and depression while surrounded by his Greek family, friends and girls he might or might not have a crush on.
About The Author
Les Zig is a novelist, screenwriter, and speaker.
He has five published novels: Just Another Week in Suburbia (Pantera Press 2017), explores the questions of trust, fidelity, and how well you can ever truly know another person; while August Falling (Pantera Press 2018) is a story about unconditional acceptance, reclaiming the past, and finding a way forward; and Prudence (ECG Press 2023), which is a exploration of fidelity, temptation, and our darkest desires.
As ‘Lazaros Zigomanis’, he wrote the YA novel Song of the Curlew (Pinion Press 2019), a story about dreams, coming of age, community, love, and racism. It has been described by best-selling Young Adult author George Ivanoff as ‘an extraordinary book.’
His new YA novel, This, tells the story of a 15-year-old dealing with burgeoning neurosis as he navigates social pressures, high school obligations, and his overbearing Greek parents.
Les is also the writer and director behind the half-hour satire mockumentary Little Diva Rising, which has met with great success on the independent festival circuit; and the web series The Abnorms, a preternatural take on life in lockdown during the pandemic. He also wrote and directed the short action film, The Other Side of Paradise. He’s had four screenplays optioned, and a raft of unproduced screenplays place in over one hundred competitions. His stories and articles have also been published extensively.
A lifetime writer, Les has a love of storytelling, and has always wanted to tell stories.
