These are tales from the post-industrial scablands - stories of austerity, poverty, masochism and migration. The people here are sick, lonely, lost, half-living in the aftermath of upheaval or trauma. A teacher obsessively canes himself. A neurologist forgets where home is. A starving woman sells hugs in an abandoned kiosk.
Yet sometimes, even in the twilit scablands, there's also beauty, music, laughter. Sometimes a town square is filled with bubbles. Sometimes sisters dream they can fly. Sometimes an old man plays Bach to an empty street, two ailing actors see animal shapes in clouds, a cancer survivor searches for a winning lottery ticket in her rundown flat. And sometimes Gustav Mahler lives just round the corner, hoarding rare records in a Stoke terrace.
| ISBN: | 9781784632946 |
| Publication date: | 15th July 2023 |
| Author: | Jonathan Taylor |
| Publisher: | Salt an imprint of Salt Publishing Limited |
| Format: | Paperback |
| Pagination: | 136 pages |
| Series: | Salt Modern Stories |
| Genres: |
Shorter Reads |