Former Newark teacher, Lincolnshire based author Donald McDonald releases sixth book Someone
A former Newark school teacher has released his sixth book — exploring a boxing match and the fighters’ family lives in 1950s New York.
Author Donald McDonald taught English language and literature at Magnus Church of England Academy for a decade as well as at schools across Lincolnshire, and has since released eight books — this being his sixth with publisher Brewin Books.
His latest novel, Someone, is set in 1959 and through 15 ‘gruelling rounds’ of a boxing match explores the lives of the two fighters — a Black American and an Italian American — who want the purse for different reasons, and their families.
Donald, who now lives in Lincolnshire, said: “It is what my publisher calls ‘faction’, it’s a fictional story set against an authentic setting of 1950s New York. All the references to organised crime are authentic, all the places and addresses mentioned are authentic.”
The book is in part inspired by Donald’s own trips to New York, where he visits friends in the Lower East Side of Manhattan, as well as the Bronx, watching basketball and Mets games.
The author has been writing all his life, his imagination being fired by Saturday morning cinema in Worthing. As well as being a teacher, he has had a variety of jobs including advertising copywriter, assistant cinema manager and scaffolder’s mate.
His previous novels include the story of a missing U-boat which mysteriously re-surfaced years later, titled Dead Submariner, as well as a story of a tangled web of crime and love in For the Glory of Stevenson, as well as many others.
Donald is also working on two more novels — which he writes entirely by hand on 500-600 sheets of lined A4 per book — one retelling the Kennedy assassination and another about a deadly pandemic, where the fate of humanity may rest in two men’s hands.
Donald’s novels are available directly through Brewin Books.
