A Flowering Wound

Cover Image: Jason Zerrillo

"It was only in my dearly loved evenings that I still felt at home." – Joseph Roth

Two of the stories in this collection by John Howard have their setting in a certain west London suburb—the calm prospect of its small houses and tree-lined roads is deceptive. And throughout this selection of stories, whether in outer London or hyperinflationary Berlin, Romania in the febrile 1930s, or the austerity Britain of recent years, we encounter people who live on the peripheries of their cities and societies—and at the edge of their own lives and illusions. They might think they know the rules, but it often turns out they do not, after all. Or perhaps the rules changed—silently, abruptly. In these stories past and present come together with wounding consequences for those caught out by the system—or its absence.

Contents

• "A Glimpse of the City"
• "Portrait in an Unfaded Photograph"
• "The Golden Mile"
• "Falling into Stone"
• "Ziegler Against the World"
• "A Flowering Wound"
• "We, the Rescued"
• "The Man Ahead"
• "Twilight of the Airships"
• "Under the Sun"
• "Acknowledgements"

John Howard was born in London. His books include The Defeat of Grief, The Lustre of Time, The Silver Voices, Written by Daylight, Cities and Thrones and Powers, and Buried Shadows. Secret Europe and Inner Europe are joint collections written with Mark Valentine. Howard’s essays on fantastic fiction and its classic authors have appeared in Wormwood and other places, and many are gathered in Touchstones: Essays on the Fantastic.

Limited hardcover