Nine Lives

Nine Lives is a collection of short stories written over the past decade. The opening story, ‘Not Found Hanging’ concerns a comfortably married man discovering that his ex-lover is terminally ill, and how his repressed guilt over how he deceived her threatens to destroy him too. In ‘Suddenly Autumn’ it is the protagonist who faces serious illness, but his reaction to it is both extreme and surprising. The central character of ‘Chameleon in a Coalmine’ is Hans Asperger, and spotlights his relationship to the activities of medical experimenters under the Nazis. ‘On the Level’ is a short thriller set at a level crossing, where a philanderer’s guilt forces him to make a split second decision about his lover’s husband, with catastrophic results. In ‘If Bricks Should Burn’ a former World War Two airman is haunted by nightmares of his time spent in a Lancaster bomber, whilst struggling to cope with an incurably ill wife in the present. ‘No Laughing Matter’ is a fictional account of the life of one of Britain’s best loved entertainers (but can you guess who?). ‘Imagine Me’ focuses on the relationship between a transvestite and his widowed father, and the novel solution they find to cope with their shared grief. ‘Discharge of Duty’ is the story of a conscientious objector and the privations he suffers as a result of his moral stand - a story with a distinctly black style of humour! Finally, in ‘Strangers at the Door’ an elderly man, who feels persecuted by his neighbours, repeatedly misinterprets the motives of professionals sent to help him, who ironically have his best interests at heart.