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.
- ISBN10 1784632953
- ISBN13 9781784632953
- Publish Date 15 July 2023
- Publish Status Active
- Publish Country GB
- Imprint Salt Publishing
- Format eBook (EPUB)
- Language English
- URL http://saltpublishing.com/products/scablands-and-other-stories-9781784632946