Boy Made the Difference

Rex, a husband and father, makes an unintentional error. Will Rex get away with his terrible, taboo-bustingmistake? This opening premise is the starting gun to a rollicking ride through London of the late 1980s and early1990s, in a literary novel that focuses on human frailty, love, marriage, family bonds, gay sex, betrayal,alcoholism, illness and death. Although aspects of the novel are richly ironic and even comedic, it alsodeals with challenging themes, not least HIV/AIDS.Matt Bishop wrote The Boy Made the Difference because very few (if any) literary novels are set againstthe narrative backdrop of the HIV/AIDS crisis of the late 1980s and early 1990s, which had a profoundand lasting impact on the gay community. All of the proceeds from the book sales will be donated tohis late mother’s charity – the Bernardine Bishop Appeal (part of CLIC Sargent – a charity that helpschildren, young people and their families who are suffering the effects of cancer).

Born in London in 1962, Matt Bishop has worked in motor racing (principally in Formula 1, but now as a director of W Series, the international motor racing championship for female drivers) for many years, but before that as an award-winning journalist and editor. Bishop ghost-wrote the autobiography of double Formula 1 world champion Emerson Fittipaldi, Emmo: A Racer’s Soul. In the late 1980s he worked as a home support volunteer for the world’s largest HIV/AIDS centre.