Once in A Blue Moon (stories)

Once in a Blue Moon (2003) is the second collection of short stories by Magnus Mills. As in his novels, each is told by an unnamed narrator :

  • "Once in a Blue Moon" in which the narrator acts as negotiator in an armed siege between the police and his mother.
  • "The Good Cop" in which he is interrogated by one or possibly two identical policemen.
  • "They Drive by Night" in which he is picked up as a hitch-hiker by a large lorry in which he sits in the noisy cab between the driver and his mate and attempts to make sense of the conversation.
  • "Screwtop Thompson" in which he is a child and receives as a present "Screwtop Thompson" a toy whose head unscrews and which came in several guises. The narrator chose a policeman but received a schoolmaster....without a head.

Famous quotes containing the words blue and/or moon:

    Notice how he has numbered the blue veins
    in my breast. Moreover there are ten freckles.
    Now he goes left. Now he goes right.
    He is building a city, a city of flesh.
    He’s an industrialist.
    Anne Sexton (1928–1974)

    Romeo. Lady, by yonder blessed moon I vow,
    That tips with silver all these fruit tree tops—
    Juliet. O, swear not by the moon, th’ inconstant moon,
    That monthly changes in her circled orb,
    Lest that thy love prove likewise variable.
    William Shakespeare (1564–1616)