Heavy Water and Other Stories - Stories

Stories

• "Career Move" (first published in The New Yorker in 1992) in which the literary world is inverted; screenplay writers such as Alistair struggle to have their work published in small magazines, whilst poets such as Luke are courted by Hollywood publishing conglomerates and fly first-class around the world. (online text)

• "Denton's Death" (Encounter, 1976) in which the protagonist sits alone in his squalid room and ponders his forthcoming assassination at the hands of three hired killers using a 'machine'. (online text)

• "State of England" (The New Yorker, 1986) set at a fee-paying school, the narrator using a mobile phone to communicate with his estranged wife and reflecting on his up and down career as a bouncer.

• "Let me Count the Times" (Granta, 1981) in which a man has an obsessive and increasingly intense affair with himself and his imagination which gradually takes over from his relationship with his wife.

• "The Coincidence of the Arts" (1997) in which an English Baronet becomes entangled with an American chess hustler and aspiring novelist and has an unexpected affair with a silent Afro-Caribbean woman.

• "Heavy Water" (New Statesman, 1978) in which a working-class woman takes her mentally handicapped son on a Mediterranean cruise.

• "The Janitor on Mars" (The New Yorker, 1998) in which a robot makes contact from Mars and reveals the shocking truth of mankind's place in the Universe.

• "Straight Fiction" (Esquire, 1995) in which everyone is gay, apart from the beleaguered though increasingly vocal 'straight' community.

• "What Happened to me on Holiday" (The New Yorker, 1997) in which death rears its head in the life of a young boy.