Other Lives (Paperback)

Two new novellas, Mirror and Appassionata, are collected here with a third, The Blue Door (Umuzi, 2006), into one volume and thematically form a novel about the question: what other lives may we be living, and what if they connect? The result is a book which is at times reminscent of Kazuo Ishiguro's The Unconsoled as it enters surreal and inexplicable worlds. In Mirror a successful Cape Town architect wakes up one morning to find the face of a black man staring back at him from his bathroom mirror. Shocked, he nevertheless begins his day, dreading the reactions of his wife, children and business partners. But no one seems to be aware of his metamorphosis. In The Blue Door an artist retreats to his studio cottage, to be greeted by a beautiful but unfamiliar woman and her daughters as if they were his family. When he returns to his real wife he cannot locate their apartment in the building where they have been living. In Appassionata an accompanist falls in love with a beautiful and brilliant soprano, but she forbids him any physical contact. Her former lover and accompanist have both recently died under suspect circumstances. But on a weekend away she, or someone else, comes to him at night.