It was a slow Sunday in late July in a small northern Italian town. The sun bullied its way through as I stood in the crowds of people at the tiny train station. The afternoon heat reached out, bringing forth the smell of the metal from the train rails. Unwashed hair is what it smelled
Out behind The Barn is my first encounter with Boden and Lutzke and what an encounter it was, a tale that is dripping with sorrow, hope and brotherhood / sonship with a side portion of loneliness. The book is short coming in at just 100 pages but sometimes as the old adage says ‘the best
After departing in a blaze of mediocrity, Graham Vasey returned to St. Joseph’s Junior School only twice in his life. The first time, it was being renamed the Graham Vasey Junior School, in dedication to his Booker Prize-winning success. He had sprung from such humble origins; he thanked his schooldays, in several interviews, as a
Everybody I knew liked Herb Alpert. It is possible to have had an absolutely awful childhood and yet to have been happy. There were influences. All of the girls in my fifth grade wanted to kiss my classmate because he looked like Paul McCartney. I stole Beatles’ cards to give to a girl. Martin Luther
You’ve just walked in the door, stripped off your Lycra and turned on the shower when you see it: the toe. Not an ordinary toe; not a toe attached to a foot attached to a leg attached to a body. No. This is a severed toe. Freshly severed. It’s upright and propped against the wall.
I’m having an affair with an older woman. It’s not an extramarital affair because she’s not married. She’s actually a widow. She’s been a widow for as long as I’ve known her. I went to school with her son. We were in the same class. Sometimes, he would come over to my house after school
The Storm is a debut short story collection from Akeem Balogun, a collection with interlinked characters and sprawling narrative that takes place during a cataclysmic storm, a storm that the world has never seen before and a storm that seems to have no end. So sit back and enjoy this almost apocalyptic nightmare told via
Gerald Spokes was Sabrina’s landlord and lived in number three, across the hallway. His father had bought the faded Georgian townhouse after the war and converted the over-large rooms into single-bedroomed flats. Sabrina had never married and couldn’t seem to keep a boyfriend for much longer than a season. They came and went with the
‘A fathers decades-long search for a missing daughter. A young woman about to perfect the darkest art. The most dangerous secret Hollywood has ever kept.’ Chuck is back (after leaving us with his writing memoir – Consider This) with a scintillating new novel, a slow burn that burns bright and long and loud. Fans of
When I was twenty-seven, I bought a flat on monthly instalments in the outskirts of Pune city. I was still living with my parents at the time, but I visited my flat whenever I needed to feel calm. The walkway from the gate to my building was long and lined on both sides with innocent
