Heather Beck isn't one to embrace convention and her first novel is anything but conventional. Home is Where (Comma £7.95) already recognised as a Mrs Dalloway for the twenty-first century, deals with a character not usually given a voice in literature. A portrait of an elderly mind on the brink of senility, the narrative weaves in and out of a first person interior monologue and a detached third person observational voice. It is this cross narration technique, and the distinct way in which Heather uses punctuation to create a solid structure for the novel, that distinguishes the text as experimental fiction." I have an elderly character who can't always articulate what's going on. For that reason, if I used only her voice, the results would be too difficult to follow. Likewise, if I used just the third person objective narration, it would be too impersonal and cold since you wouldn't get a feel for Mrs Coop's thoughts. I hope combining the two gives the best of both worlds." It is a technique that works. One senses that at times Mrs Coop is coherent, at times she is not, and other times; such as when the irritatingly helpful neighbour Mrs Bamber appears, Mrs Coop chooses to be the batty one from hell. It is these moments, when the senile and the lucid meet, that pepper the novel with a gentle humour. So perfectly articulated is the character of Mrs Coop, the vernacular faultless and the logic associated to memories of the home so believable, that one suspects that she is in fact real."When I first moved to Darwin in Lancashire I was impressed by the Victorian Markets, we hadn't anything like that in the States (Heather is from Wyoming). I was at butcher's stall one day and an elderly lady was buying pressed tongue and paying for it with pennies. I found out afterwards that this is what she did every week. The character emerged gradually and I did a lot of research, I lived in the local library looking through local stories. Also, I have experienced it through my own family and so have a familiarity with elderly people."Home is a central theme in the novel: "Mrs Coop has lived in the same place and the same home all her life. Her physical home is linked with memories from her past and she is very much alone in the world. Her memories make her life bearable." Heather tells me, "I have no sense of home like most people do, (her father's job meant frequent moves, and Heather eventually elected to go to boarding school). Probably for that reason I became interested in an elderly female character, I wanted to experience that very fundamental concept - home - through my imagination"Memories of Polly, the sausages and the bum paper, will make readers smile. The frosted glass, the striped curtains and that bicycle "the young Willacy girl" may make you cry. Home is Where is an astounding debut, and Heather Beck's rare talent makes art out of the ordinary of everyday life.