NIGHT GAUNTS AND OTHER TALES OF SUSPENSE

Six gorgeously eerie stories exploring the deepest entwining of lust and repulsion, creation and dissolution, Eros and Thanatos. 'The Woman In the Window' opens with a naked woman seated in front of the window of an apartment she cannot afford. The reader enters the minds of both the woman and her married lover, each consumed by alternating thoughts of disgust and arousal, as he rushes to her door. In 'The Long-Legged Girl', an ageing, jealous wife crafts an unusual game of Russian roulette involving a pair of Wedgwood teacups, a strong Bengal brew, and a lethal concoction. Who will drink from the wrong cup, the wife or the dance student she believes to be her husband's latest conquest? 'The Experimental Subject' involves secret, forbidden research conducted on a naively trusting young woman by a laboratory of unscrupulous scientists at a major American university. In 'Night-Gaunts', a fantastic ode to H. P. Lovecraft, the young Horace Phineas Love Jr. is haunted by apparitions after the death of his tortured father. Revelling in the uncanny, and rich in conversation with other creative minds, the collection stands at the crossroads of sex, violence and longing as we interrogate the impulses within ourselves. Socially astute and stylishly written short stories. 333pp, paperback.