The Card

The Card is a novel about a man who collects cards he finds on the street – playing cards, bubble-gum cards, cigarette cards – each one apparently containing a hidden clue to a coded message: to save the life of Princess Diana who is ‘in grave and imminent danger’. As he embarks on his mission, a parallel narrative strand from thirty years earlier in 1967 gradually reveals the underlying motive for his obsession. The two narrative paths begin to converge as the story heads towards its seemingly preordained conclusion. The story explores notions of collecting, ‘completism’ and synchronicity: our willingness to find meaningful connections between things that will ultimately lead us to where we were heading in the first place. The book is written, designed and illustrated by Graham Rawle. Its pages contain evidence of the cards and where they were found. (All of the cards were created specially for the book). The text design makes use of varying fonts and a series of coded graphic symbols to register connections and highlight coincidences throughout the story. These visual signifiers provide an unwritten subtext that gives insight into the workings of the protagonist’s mind and his unique view of the world.