The Evil Andrew Bowden
Published on 5 November 2007 in Life, Andrew Bowdens, books
When it comes to Andrew Bowdens, well I’m one. Then there’s the former Conservative MP for Brighton and Hove. And the editor of the Biased BBC website
And that’s it. As far as I know.
Well until today, because thanks to Google’s email alerts (set for oh, such a little vanity…), the first known literary Andrew Bowden has been found – by which I mean a character in a short story. It’s not exactly a name I’d hugely expected to come up in fiction, but then authors have to get names from somewhere.
In the back of the car a man, 23 the same age as him was tied up and gagged with Gaffer tape. Joe continued on as fast as he could, not looking back. The man in the back was Andrew Bowden.
It turns out that this particular Andrew Bowden had cheated on Joe’s girlfriend. Joe’s girlfriend wasn’t to know because she was blind and Andrew and Joe has similar voices and features. That’s because they’re twin bothers. And the story proclaims that “Andrew was the evil twin”.
Not being a particular fan of horror writing, this particular, non-evil Andrew Bowden, can’t really say if it’s any good or not. Although as stories go, I found it a bit depressing and a bit gruesome. But then that does kinda figure as author Benhamin Solah is, according to his website, a “Sydney horror writer and marxist revolutionary”.
The beauty of the internet though is that you can read this particular story and make your own mind up. It is one of a number of short stories which Solah has collected into a book called “Sanity – Juxtaposed!” and should the extract above tickle your fancy, you can buy it online. Personally I think I’ll stick to non-imaginary, and preferably non-evil, name-sakes.