Featured Author: Paul Symonloe

Literary Fiction

Some stories are born from inheritance, not of objects or names, but of memory, displacement, and the long echo of history. Paul Symonloe’s writing emerges from exactly this place.

Raised in England by a kindly English mother and a Jewish father who survived the Holocaust, Paul describes himself as carrying the aftershocks of history across generations. The trauma of the concentration camps did not end with liberation; it arced across the years, shaping identity, belonging, and a persistent sense of displacement. In his twenties, Paul experienced a dissociative fugue state, an event that gave him a visceral understanding of what it means to feel like a refugee, even while standing on familiar ground.

That experience lies at the emotional core of his debut novel, Windsor ’85: Unbridled Summer. But this is not a story defined solely by heaviness. It is also comic, tender, and warmly human, a love story, a coming-of-age tale, and a tribute to the grace, duty, and symbolic steadiness of Queen Elizabeth II, as well as to the town of Windsor and the people who love it and live in it.

Set in 1985, the novel follows Simon Levi, the son of a Holocaust survivor, as he searches for identity, purpose, and belonging in a town that becomes both refuge and mirror. Simon’s journey unfolds through family tensions, romantic longing, youthful misjudgments, and the quiet weight of inherited history. His brilliant sister Freya, his ambitious father, and his fiercely loving mother shape his path, while friendships, work mishaps, and a transformative relationship with Georgie push him toward adulthood.

Excerpt

Chapter One.
Oh Bollocks!

Diary Note: 10th June 1985
One Week After Moving To Windsor

Moving to Windsor was my moon landing moment. OK, Neil Armstrong got there first, but my one small step from home was still a ginormous leap on the road to independence. Granted, I’d visited the town before– my home village wasn’t far away–so I was no stranger. But living in a place is a whole different thing, especially if you’re emerging from under a black cloud.
After just a week, however, and somewhat to my surprise, I was buzzing with the novelty of my new bedsit life. A pint-sized fortress, the town of Windsor is small enough to get acquainted with quickly, and, to prove the point, I’d been out exploring–making an effort to put myself about– in a good way, naturally. I wouldn’t have dreamed of charging around like some kind of local hero. Not with my history. Not that anyone knew me or cared, of course. But my determined mingling was beginning to pay off, and my social life was swinging along nicely. Freewheeling days, no strings. I’d even met a couple of friendly, down-the-pub girls, climbed up to the Copper Horse (twice); the first time, waiting at shimmering first light, a chrysalis of expectancy for the key to my new life. I’d been down to the river Thames, reminding myself of childhood boat trips to Boveney Lock. I’d said hello to the ducks and smiled at the clattery little fairground railway with its quaint, rattling miniature train, complete with a bell you could clang yourself. Plus, I was getting to know Ajay, a quirky Indian guy my age who ran the corner shop. Everything on my tiny new planet was in jaunty harmony: zip-a-dee-doo-dah! Bluebirds were landing on my shoulder and everything. Wonderful feeling, wonderful day…
Right up, that is, until the elephantine party-pooper, lack of cash, barged in to spoil things. The harmony slowed, slurred, and stopped. Oh bollocks!
Turns out, freedom is really bloody expensive…
And this, just when things were going so well. Summer was getting into full swing, my toast-infested bedsit was growing on me, and Windsor’s special vibe was coursing through my veins.
My sudden cash crisis took on the seedy form of Mr. Givall, my landlord, whose mind was stuck in a rent-collecting loop. Unintentionally bumping into him in the threadbare stairwell, he gave me two helpful tips. One.
“Now you’ve paid your deposit, the rent is due on rent day. On the dot. Not always late, like some of the long-haired yobbos I’ve had in ’ere.” And, helpful tip two.
“No dosh and you’re out. No ifs or buts.”
Informative. Good of him to flag it up, only he was quite rude in his final summing up.
“You look like a bit of a mummy’s boy to me. Any money troubles, go to her. Don’t come running to me.”
Pretty instant permafrost to the youthful spirit, especially as I’d been counting on a short-term loan from my father being the first month’s rent. Now Mr Givall’s pithy advice had removed all doubt. As he reeled off the good news on the echoey stairs, shuffling from foot to foot, he shed fine flurries of dandruff, which settled invisibly on the stringy carpet.
“Rent on the nail. Got it?” he wound up. I watched him lope off down the grimy staircase.
Again, bollocks!
No longer was it a wonderful day, and, not even remotely, was everything going my way. Plus, the blues were topped off by fate nobbling my promised bar work. It all added up to a bleak financial forecast. Hasta la vista, Zip-a-Dee. Adios, Doo-Dah.

Paul’s devotion to witty writing is unmistakable. Influenced by voices ranging from Jane Austen to John Sullivan (Only Fools and Horses), and shaped by a childhood steeped in humour as survival, his prose balances seriousness with levity. Comedy becomes not an escape from pain, but an antidote, a way of bearing it.

A long-time resident of Windsor, Paul runs an English school in the town that anchors his novel. His work for the stage has been produced, and he is currently collaborating with Guy Masterson (The Shark Is Broken, West End and Broadway) on the play American English.

Windsor ’85: Unbridled Summer is not yet published, but it already reads like a love letter — to place, to imperfection, to inherited wounds, and to the quiet, complicated work of becoming oneself.

At Hidden Voices, we are honoured to share Paul’s story, one that reminds us that humour and heartbreak often walk hand in hand, and that sometimes the search for home begins long before we realise we are looking.