Book Description

This novel is about a character whose disillusionment begins soon after he arrives into contemporary culture and finds it almost impossible to cope. He is at odds with a dark uninviting City in which he lives and his work which he does in the Tower. The Tower is my synonym for all that he believes controls society and politics. Throughout, he falls back to compare his life to the life he remembers as a child. Most of them are memories of childhood adventures full of warmth and longing but he also remembers difficult times with his father. As he ages he begins to dream of a return to the past but eventually accepts that there is no going back. There is no escape for him as he has become far too deeply meshed into the City and the Tower. It is a story of unresolved struggle and internal conflict and a journey that poses questions, each one throwing up far too many answers to do anything other than to confuse. There is a great deal of anger at historical injustices perpetrated around the world, all of which has been sanitized by modern historical writing. His life ends in failure but that is what he always expected. It is also an intense love story and his love for a woman with whom he had an affair for only 24 weeks. Its failure haunts him throughout his life and he becomes quite unable ever to love again. His frustration leads him into several unrewarding sexual encounters, real and imagined, some with graphic scenes and some that mean nothing at all. Behind all this is a character I have named the Custodian. He is a mentor and his conscience, often by his side, critical and unforgiving but I never make it clear if he is a real person. In essence it is an analysis of internal conflict of a man who ultimately realizes he has failed at everything, having struggled throughout to stop himself from tearing apart. It is unusual in literary style combing a touch of poetry within prose. It is haunting in the sense that it a mix of past and present, always simmering in a cauldron of confusion. Sepulchral in silence this tranquil home in which I turn from side to side end to end. No challenge to my thoughts or voices with demands no calls upon my love or pilfering of my time No hunger I feed or thirst I meet, through these rooms I walk lips unspeaking eyes unsmiling answered in full my call to be free.