Buy one get one free offers are quite possibly the greatest invention shops have given us. For all of us, it’s a chance to get something for nothing. But for the brave, it’s a world of opportunity. After all, if you already have one thing you’d really like in your hand, something you’d willingly pay the full price for anyway and they’re offering you something else, you’re getting it for nothing. So you have nothing to lose.

Noah Arkwright, unfortunately, does have something to lose. His life. Of course, we all have a life to lose, but for Noah it looks likely to happen sooner rather than later. Noah, you see, has cancer of the bladder. He’s beaten it into remission a couple of times already, but on each occasion the cancer has done nothing more than pause to get its breath back and return for another try, stronger than before. That’s not all, either. Noah has spent part of his adult life hooked on hard drugs and is also a recovering alcoholic. He might have escaped a small town background to become a famous and successful film maker, but he hasn’t escaped his demons.

The plot makes the book sound a lot more depressing than it actually is. There are plenty of dark moments, as you might expect from someone suffering from a potentially fatal illness. But Noah manages to retain what he calls his “sense of tumour” throughout everything and there are some light hearted moments dotted around here and there. Noah seems to be able to look back on his life, even the toughest parts, with a wry smile, as if mocking himself for the idiot he’s been over the years. The belly laughs are fewer, but some still sneak in.

The characters are beautifully formed, with none of them really seeming unreal. Which, given some of the strange situations they’ve been encountered in, largely thanks to Noah’s career and drug addictions, is impressive indeed. But no-one in reality is perfect and so no-one in “Dangerous Parking” is either. So much of modern literature seems airbrushed, failing to reflect the negative sides of either life or the people in it. “Dangerous Parking” recognises this and ensures it is left out. As strange as it seems to describe a book concerned with such dark subjects as cancer and addiction in this way, it’s actually quite refreshing.

Essentially, “Dangerous Parking” is a trip through a man’s memories as he sees his end approaching. There is always a danger than something like this could be self-indulgent, especially as you can see where the novel may well be auto-biographical in many parts. However, it manages to stay away from those traps and instead proves to be a light-hearted, quite sweet novel and the journey, despite where it leads, is one you’re happy to share.