Twice The Speed of Dark. Lulu Allison

      

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      About the Author

      Lulu Allison has spent most of her life as a visual artist. She attended Central Saint Martin’s School of Art before spending a number of years travelling and living abroad. Among the bartending and cleaning jobs, highlights of those years included: in New Zealand, playing drums for King Loser and bass for Dimmer; in Germany, making spectacle hinges in a small factory; in Amsterdam, painting a landmark mural on a four-storey squat and nearly designing the new Smurfs; in Fiji and California, teaching scuba diving.

      After a decade of wandering, she returned to the UK, where she had two children and focused on art. She completed a fine art MA and exhibited her lens-based work and site-specific installations in group and solo shows.

      In 2013, what began as an art project took her into writing, and she unexpectedly discovered what she should have been doing all along.

      Twice the Speed of Dark is her first book. She is currently writing a second, called Wetlands.

Twice the Speed of Dark

      This edition first published in 2017

      Unbound

      6th Floor Mutual House, 70 Conduit Street, London W1S 2GF

       www.unbound.com

      All rights reserved

      © Lulu Allison, 2017

      The right of Lulu Allison to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. No part of this publication may be copied, reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

      ISBN (eBook): 978-1911586456

      ISBN (Paperback): 978-1911586449

      Design by Mecob

      Cover images :

      © Shutterstock.com / ArtYouAre (trees) © Shutterstock.com / Elenamiv (sky) © Shutterstock.com / pzAxe (newspaper) © Shutterstock.com / peresanz (stars) © Shutterstock.com / Katyau (writing) Textures.com (background)

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       This book is dedicated to the strangers, the shades – the two women a week and the nameless dead.

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      Dear Reader,

      The book you are holding came about in a rather different way to most others. It was funded directly by readers through a new website: Unbound.

      Unbound is the creation of three writers. We started the company because we believed there had to be a better deal for both writers and readers. On the Unbound website, authors share the ideas for the books they want to write directly with readers. If enough of you support the book by pledging for it in advance, we produce a beautifully bound special subscribers’ edition and distribute a regular edition and e-book wherever books are sold, in shops and online.

      This new way of publishing is actually a very old idea (Samuel Johnson funded his dictionary this way). We’re just using the internet to build each writer a network of patrons. Here, at the back of this book, you’ll find the names of all the people who made it happen.

      Publishing in this way means readers are no longer just passive consumers of the books they buy, and authors are free to write the books they really want. They get a much fairer return too – half the profits their books generate, rather than a tiny percentage of the cover price.

      If you’re not yet a subscriber, we hope that you’ll want to join our publishing revolution and have your name listed in one of our books in the future. To get you started, here is a £5 discount on your first pledge. Just visit unbound.com, make your pledge and type TWICESPEED17 in the promo code box when you check out.

      Thank you for your support,

       Dan, Justin and John

       Founders, Unbound

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      Super Patrons

      Amy Allison

       Thea Allison

       Jem, Sol & Maisie Allison

       Sarah Allison

       Joe & Sallie Allison

       Philip Allison

       Olive Allison

       Robert Allison

       Bruce Amos

       William Amos

       Stephanie Amos

       Johanna Berger

       Clive Boorman

       Alex Bowen

       Samantha Brown

       Jane Carr

       Paul Clarke

       Barry Cottle

       Thurstan Crockett

       Mike Crump

       Phoebe Deans Allison

       Lilian Deans Allison

       Nansi Diamond

       Sophie Dissanayake

       Catharine Faithfull

       Alex Fenton

       Alastair Galbraith

       Zoe Glover

       Tommy Graml

       Liz Hale

       Pierre Halé

       Amanda Hallay

       Suzanne Harrington

       Brendan Hoffman

       Jenny Hunt

       Simon Jerrome

       Michi Kern

       Dan Kieran

       Katrina Luker

       Nik Maroney

       Andrew McCabe

       Josephine McGhie

       John Mitchinson

       Stephanie Monk

       Lee Oliver

       Tina Pepler

       Donna Pillai

       Justin Pollard

       Suzie Poyntz

       Mike & Chris Raab

       Matt Redman

       Jill Richter

       Kathy Roper

       Fay Rutherford

       Mike Shreeve

       Damion Silcock

       Katie Simpson

       Andrea Slater

       Uli Springer

       David Sutherland

       Caroline Sutherland