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You Like That, Don't You? new article content ... is a 2011 novel by Kelvin Nel, about how a series of murders in Southend-on-Sea affects the friendships and relationships of a New York based English writer called Gavin De Jong. It is a refective, comedic novel set in the year 1984 and features Southend-on-Sea and Basildon in Essex, as well as London.

PLOT SUMMARY The story begins in the autumn of the year 2013. It is about Gavin De Jong. Gavin is a middle-aged media personality, along the same levels of a Jonathan Ross, Mark Kermode, Bill Maher, or Jon Stewart. Gavin is over in London from his home in New York, to work on some film documentaries. It is around the time of The London Film Festival. While visiting his son, Roscoe, from his first marriage to Kathy in Southend-on Sea, England - and Gavin’s old hometown, Roscoe questions Gavin over what he has heard through the rumour mill, about a series of events with an old girlfriend back in 1984. It is due to resurface in the British media and, if true, could ruin his hitherto clean cut image, and possibly his career. Over the course of the day, Gavin ruefully reflects on that year and explains it all to Roscoe as well reconciling it from inside his own memory of that momentous time in his life. Flash back to January 1, 1984. Gavin De Jong is a twenty-one year old man who has recently met Leah Koch; a scatty and enigmatic yet mature seventeen year-old girl. Gavin has and belongs to a group of tight closely-knit friends. They have been friends for years, and jokingly go under the banner The First Team. The First Team are known by all of their peers and are equally liked and disliked all over town. They do not care either way as Gavin and his friends are only interested in each other. Gavin and these closest friends: Pete Ketteridge, Jason Franklyn, Terry Boyle, Alan Palmer, Roger Markson and Jim Radcliffe are like most young men. The majority of them work in dead-end boring jobs at the local Customs & Excise in Southend, with Palmer the exception, out of all of them, being employed in a bank. They like to chase girls, play football, get drunk and discuss and watch films and listen to and argue about music - mainly Gavin‘s love for soul and jazz-funk. However, it is their cruel and outrageous humour that really binds them together and sets them aside from the usual gangs and groups of other young people of the period. The First Team adore and appreciate the TV programmes around at the time, like Batman, Star Trek, Dr Who, Crossroads and are all also fans of Laurel and Hardy, from which they regularly refer to in the course of their day-to-day humdrum lives. Gavin escaped joining the civil service earlier and is employed as a cinema projectionist in nearby ‘new’ suburban town, Basildon. It is almost a dream job as Gavin is mad about films. He works at the cinema with a mixed and eccentric team; a like-minded and similar aged guy called Tim Conway, a useless fifty year old woman, Gloria Fawn, and a racist forty something man, Nick Field - who is his Chief - as well as a small mixture of old and young, male and female other cinema staff. The First Team, with a few others, book an 18-30 holiday for August, later in the year, at Lloret de Mar, in Spain. This is all they can talk and think about during the long months leading up to it. Gavin is slightly torn between the upcoming sexual and drunken extravaganza as his relationship with Leah is just beginning and he wants to make a success out of it, as well as being desperate to have sex with her. Leah, however, seems to thwart his every turn at any hints of sex or romance. As the normal cycle of Gavin’s life ambles along - namely the weekly pattern of work, mickey taking, partying, nights in and out with Leah, and of course drinking, Terry Boyle, the belligerent genius of The First Team, decides to construct an avant-garde punkish rock band, for his friends, mainly out of boredom from the routine of their day-to-day lives. In the build up to Lloret, this band gathers momentum. Rehearsals take place and a venue is booked for a concert. Meanwhile, at Gavin’s cinema, the current manager is suspended and then dismissed for a major discrepancy. A relief manager, John Hopkins, takes charge. Like Gavin, he too is a bit of a film buff. But more obsessively so. Gavin’s relationship with Leah continues to go through highs and lows, break ups and make-ups, while all around him temptation beckons. Gavin struggles to remain loyal even though his friends are having sexual success with seemingly everything in sight, and he questions if things will ever change. It is now mid summer. During another brief separation from Leah, Gavin becomes attracted to Kathy Warren, who has recently become free and single. But before anything can develop between them, Leah finally concedes to sex, of a kind, with Gavin and tells Gavin that she really loves him so Gavin gives her and their relationship another chance. The avant-garde group now named To Whisper Confused continue to compose outrageous lyrics and develop more and more bizarre concepts. Terry Boyle increasingly comes up with even more unusual and consequently, hilarious songs. They finally perform a one-off concert locally to their admirers and detractors. The concert is both spectacularly funny and artistically terrible. Almost immediately afterwards, a group of ten friends, in total, depart for Lloret. Leah journeys to New York for her holiday whilst the other boy’s girls and partners go on their various and separate holidays. Lloret and the 18-30 experience is not what the Southend boys were led to believe and expect, although they have a memorable if mixed, time. Gavin seems to be the only one who senses that this holiday could be the swansong of the close bind between his friends. On the return from their respective holidays, Gavin and Leah plan for a future together. But Leah’s continuously outrageous and unbalanced behaviour quickly forces a permanent split between them. Both relieved and depressed, Gavin wonders what the future holds for him and strikes gold with the news that Kathy Warren is both romantically and sexually interested in him. Kathy Warren is also twenty-one, but unlike the teenage Leah, is smart, intelligent and as sexual as Gavin. Kathy and Gavin become a couple. Gavin now looks to the future more optimistically and goes to work, as normal, with a spring in his step. Work however is as gloomy as it’s always been, as the cinema hangs under the threat of immediate closure due to the video revolution and dwindling audiences. Gavin’s new manager, John Hopkins, who had always seemed a bit odd has a mental breakdown on this day of all days, and takes the staff hostage on the cinema rooftop. After threatening to kill them all by setting fire to the cinema, John Hopkins is killed by an accidental fall after shooting Nick Field dead. Police interviews and visits to psychiatrists take place for all of the staff. However, the cinema is too badly damaged to re-open and is forced to close. Gavin and the other staff are handsomely compensated but Gavin is now unemployed, which is a desperate situation for him, in recession-hit Britain. In October, Kathy and Gavin are, by now, wild and passionate lovers and they also, inevitably, begin to fall in love. Gavin also gets closer to her family, which is in stark contrast to when he had to interact with Leah’s cold and ambivalent family. Gavin is offered and takes up a role with Kathy’s father, Gary, at The National Theatre in London. Once again, everything looks rosy… During yet another police interview it is revealed that a third person, John Mallory’s army Major father Gerald, killed his wife - John Hopkins’ mother - and not John Mallory, as first thought and which had been indicated by John Hopkins during the cinema siege. Just when things are settling down again, unexpectedly, estranged friend Jim Radcliffe is murdered. No one knows why. It is a complete shock. The police name this Gerald Mallory, from the army, as the main suspect. But why has he killed Radcliffe? Gavin reads between the lines of the police investigation and realises that certain words and images shown to Gavin during the police interview lead back to the night of To Whisper Confused’s concert, and particularly Terry Boyle’s inflammatory song lyrics which, - unbeknownst to all - John Hopkins had heard personally, for himself, a To Whisper Confused flyer - held by both of the Hopkins men - being the clue. Only Gavin realises, but he does not reveal it, because he does not know what the connection could be to him. The words on this flyer had triggered John Hopkins’ breakdown and the confrontation with his father, which, in turn, had evidently led to the mother’s death and to John Hopkins siege of the cinema later that same day. Leah Koch resurfaces only to reveal to Gavin that she is pregnant with Gavin’s baby. Due to her strong Catholic beliefs, Leah will not contemplate aborting the baby. She emotionally blackmails an equally uncompromising Gavin. Gavin just when his life was on a different path: sexually, emotionally, financially and career wise, feels threatened by Leah and the unborn child. After confronting Gavin again, this time at his parent’s house, Leah again refuses to have an abortion and hints that she wants Gavin and her to be together again once the baby is born. She also threatens to reveal all to Kathy if she doesn‘t get her way. At a Christmas Eve party at the end of Southend Pier, Leah reveals to Gavin that she relented and did finally abort the baby, but feeling discarded and unwanted and jealous of Gavin’s happiness, she still threatens to tell Kathy and all of Gavin’s assembled friends at the party the truth regardless. As bad or good luck will have it, Major Gerald Hopkins, having killed Jim Radcliffe in error a month previously, finally tracks down the real culprit, Terry Boyle, to this party on the pier. During the mayhem of a shoot up inside, Gavin - sensing an opportunity - diverts the rampaging Hopkins to where Leah is actually hiding out. Hopkins shoots her - thinking it is Boyle, in error - but only wounds Leah. Sensing no escape and filled with remorse for shooting an innocent woman, Hopkins disappears outside and commits suicide. A confused and injured Leah wanders out after Hopkins, beneath the pier, where Gavin warily follows to search for her. Leah knows Gavin betrayed her as she heard him direct Hopkins to where she was, and is heart-broken about it. Leah tells Gavin so. After envisioning a similarly bleak future ahead, Leah also commits suicide by falling into the cold, dark sea. At Leah’s funeral Gavin is first, locally and then nationally, deemed a hero for not only saving the life of his friend, Terry Boyle, but by risking his life by going after Leah Koch as well. Who was to know that Hopkins would kill her before taking his own life? Gavin though, knows the truth and has to live with this shameful lie, as well as living a lifetime lie.

CULTURAL REFERENCES The main protaganist, Gavin De Jong, is a surburban cinema projectionist. De Jong and other charcters, quote lines and situations from many films from 1984 as well as pre-1984. Films mentioned include: Rumble Fish, Heart Beat, The Outsiders, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, The Thing, The Exorcist, and the films of Laurel & Hardy. This is also the same for television programmes where series such as: Dr Who, Star Trek, Crossroads and Batman, are heavily quoted and referred to. Music, particularly soul, jazz-funk, disco and funk tunes are prevalent throughout the book. Artists including: Jeffrey Osborne, The Isley Brothers, Chic, Sting, David Sylvian, Bryan Ferry and Roxy Music to name but a few, are the ones which most influence the story and character's thoughts

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