The Tic Tac Man - a novella by Sam Mills

Sam Mills’s debut adult novel The Quiddity of Will Self centred on the conceit that an author’s essence could be distilled and consumed by his admirers. Characters literally imbibed Self’s spirit, hosting orgies where pages are torn from his books and eaten, and later purchasing relics of his corpse. Quiddity, or the ‘whatness’ of a thing, is also important in The Tic Tac Man, but this story is more inward looking, for all its gothic sense of imagination. The novella, paired with the short story The Joy of Suicide, develops Ms Mills's distinctive voice, showcasing the bizare inventiveness of her writing.

William Wilson, also known as The Tic Tac Man, is born with the rare condition gastrica volvulus penna – a stomach full of drawing pins. As a result of this condition, he is largely housebound – a rainstorm could be fatal, and the only food he can consume is mashed banana, due to its low water content. These physical torments are matched by mental suffering, dating back to an incident at school, when a bully named Steve aimed a large magnet at his chest, pulling him to the ground in front of a girl he was hoping to impress. Whilst pursuing his hobby of collecting interesting words from newspapers (allowing Ms Mills to use some of her favoured sesquipedalian language, including stertorous and priapism), he chances on a reference to Steve, and begins to plot his long-awaited revenge.

There are elements of Tim Burton in the story of a young man marked out by a physical abnormality (he rattles as he walks) who plots his revenge on his tormentors, and Ms Mills shares a taste for macabre Victoriana. The Tic Tac Man feels a natural affinity for the Siamese twins and midgets of the carnival sideshow, and when he hatches his plot he avails himself of a pince-nez and a silver watch: ‘in Victorian times, after all, the greatest freaks were the greatest showmen’. Like Quentin Crisp, he makes a virtue of his idiosyncrasies, taking pride in his outsider status. Unlike Burton’s stories though, The Tic Tac Man is not a redemptive tale. The cruel worldview is reminiscent of Self or even Roald Dahl, as Wilson fails to transcend his nature, and is beaten once more by the bully.

There is a caring heart beneath the gothic exterior of The Tic Tac Man, however. Ms Mills described Quiddity as an ‘exploration of the schizophrenic mind’, and she has written in The Weeklings about her father’s experience of schizophrenia. This influences the rather tender depiction of Wilson’s lifestyle, the stress on routine, and his battles with the DSS. What sets Wilson apart is internal, invisible to the naked eye but revealed under stress, and requiring a complex series of rituals to keep in check. Ultimately, it is what the bully uses to destroy him, and what defines him after he is gone. There are also humorous sub-plots involving twee stationary and recipes for mashed bananas.

The second story, The Joy of Suicide, is an early work, satirising art and celebrity culture while reflecting more deeply on Western attitudes toward death and the body. The story focuses on Adrian, a Young British Artist in search of a shocking theme. He is fixated on semen, but is beaten to the punch by Amy Lourdes, an Emin/Lucas hybrid who is exhibiting ‘Why I Don’t Swallow’, a new piece ‘consisting of a sample of her ex’s sperm draped across her bed’. Not only does he lack the energy for creation, but he is also too pusillanimous to make the ultimate sacrifice for art: ‘I contemplate cutting off my ear with the breadknife, but it is too blunt and has strawberry jam on it'.

Adrian sees salvation in Art Idol, a reality show hosted by Lourdes, a Simon Cowell clone and Amanda Bubble, an American fashion writer. Reflecting on his own suicidal impulses, he decides to stage a suicide, live on television; he will construct a pyre, onto which a beautiful woman will throw herself. After casting around for a volunteer, he is eventually introduced to Caro, a troubled young woman with a history of suicide attempts, who is happy to play the part.

Adrian’s plan, a conflagration which will consume the human form, is in marked contrast with other approaches to death in modern art. In recent exhibitions, from von Hagen to Hirst, physical forms have been fetishized, pickled and preserved, in an attempt to analyse, understand and neutralise our fear of death. This is a theme followed by the other contestants on Art Idol, who present pickled livers and noses to the judges. Adrian, meanwhile, portrays death as terrifying, almost majestic, and certainly final – the inferno will engulf Caro utterly, with no trace remaining. Earlier in the story, Adrian reflects on Tibetan death rituals, in which bodies are left to rot, and practitioners meditate on the decomposition process – a practice which appalled English visitors to Tibet in the early part of the twentieth century. His installation will bring the unsanitised reality of death directly into the viewers’ homes; but does he have the mental strength to cope with his own creation, and how will the judges react to this unexpected dose of reality?

The two stories which make up this release are an enjoyable stop-gap for fans waiting for a full-length follow up to Quiddity; The Tic Tac Man itself is particularly sharp, full of imagination and dark humour, while The Joy of Suicide incorporates insight into modern attitudes to death while satirising the media and art worlds. There are also moments of comic absurdity in Adrian’s search for, and seduction of, a suicidal muse, while Ms Mills’s taste for the grotesque is allowed full reign in creating modern art works – it's probably for the best that she chose a career in literature instead.

The Tic Tac Man is an e-book only release on Mr Rose press. It is available here