Questions that have arisen in the latest editing pass

• Why does our hero have no male friends?
• Shouldn’t he talk to his parents at some point?
  • Why do I write such appalling parents?
    • Am I turning into Mary Renault? (I wouldn’t mind her prose style, but I can’t stand her politics.)
• Is Michael a strawman?
• How common is it for garages to have taps?
  • Can we manage without a tap? Yes? Good.
• What does Andy look like?
• Does the geography of this town even work?
• Do these thoughts actually need to be in italics?
• Why, when the action occupies most of a year, does only one character celebrate a birthday?

Some of these I will attempt to answer or remove in the next editing pass. Others are left, as they say, as an exercise for the reader.