LOVE IS ALL

By Joan Fallon

One night in an attempt to salve his conscience Mark tells his wife that he has been having an affair with her oldest and dearest friend, and with those few words sets off a chain of events that reverberates throughout his whole family and changes the lives of those he loves forever.
Love is All set in present day middle England. It tells the story of a family still grieving after the death of the youngest son, five years previously. Teresa, Mark and their two grown-up sons are at last coming to terms with a life without him, when the harmony of their home is shattered by Mark’s confession. Distraught with grief and rage, Theresa runs out of the house and drives off into the night; she crashes her car and is seriously hurt.
Months later, when she eventually comes out of a coma, her family are devastated to hear that the damage to her brain has caused a condition known as Locked-In Syndrome. She cannot speak or swallow and the only part of her body that she can move are her eyes. But the worst news is still to come. Her mind is unaffected and she is completely aware of everything around her. She is effectively locked inside her own body and unable to communicate with anyone.
For Teresa it is a nightmare from which she cannot wake. When she realises the enormity of her plight she is unable to accept it and decides to seek refuge in an imaginary parallel world, a world where she is a whole woman again. She refuses to acknowledge her family when they visit her but Ian, her younger son, will not let her go; he persists in every way he can to give her back the will to live.