The Ends of Our Tethers - Thirteen Sorry Stories (Hardcover, illustrated edition)

The Ends of Our Tethers is the first work of fiction in seven years by Alasdair Gray. Wonderful and often very funny, this new collection reaffirms Gray as a master of the short story. In "No Bluebeard," a reclusive man, the veteran of three marriages, meets a disturbed and eccentric woman desperate to remain hidden from her family. In "Job's Skin Game," a man develops a skin condition in response to losing his two sons in the Twin Towers and his fortune in the dot-com meltdown. The exquisite pleasure he derives from scratching and peeling his dead epidermis becomes his sole preoccupation. "Well-being" offers a politically charged dystopian vision of a future Britain as seen through the eyes of a once-revered writer. He is now homeless yet stubbornly refuses to move to a more hospitable country: "There are better ways of living than being happy but they require strength and sanity." Beautifully produced and illustrated throughout with Gray's distinctive drawings, The Ends of Our Tethers is vintage Gray-accessible, experimental, mischievous, wide-ranging, beautifully written, and wise.