Helen Mannion

The Human Barnacle Helen Mannion

A child of the 1970s Permissive Society, Tuesday Penrose is truly a Human Barnacle. She attaches herself to a rock of security ensuring financial freedom, and waits for the high tide of human plankton. Ensnaring a new man every night, her appetite is voracious, depraved. She is immoral and amoral in equal measure and knows the meaning of neither word. Deploring the excesses of the Permissive Society, the traditional social fabric is under assault. For many, Tuesday exemplifies the rampant libertine excesses of the unfettered young generation. But set against this New Wave, life in the wider world continued. In the South Pacific, a luxury hotel in the Maldives is destroyed by a tsunami. Guests and staff are transferred to the partner hotel in Nauru. The most recent staff appointment is barmaid Tuesday Penrose, and here the Human Barnacle is confronted by the established values. When even exorcism by the priest Carolingus fails to rid Tuesday of her demons, it is up to a most unlikely reformed reprobate, Macedonian brigand Konstantin Kolper, to show Tuesday an alternative freedom. It is a Battle Royal and the demons within fight expulsion with all their force. Tuesday's future and her fate hang in the balance.