This author discovered a love for reading at a very young age, with his earliest literary memory being Winston Churchill's autobiography. As early as twelve years old, a short story of his was used as subject matter by an English study professor at Oxford, a highlight he recalls with fondness. Despite initially not pursuing writing as a career and instead venturing into the world of business, he has now returned to his lifelong passion later in life. With the support of his family, he is dedicated to writing, creating his own characters, and telling his own stories, finally fulfilling his creative calling.
Exploring themes of memory and forgotten truths, the narrative captivates with its visceral and twisting storyline. The characters are intricately developed, drawing readers into a world that challenges perceptions and unearths hidden secrets. The propulsive writing style keeps the pace engaging, making it a compelling read that invites deep reflection. This novel promises to leave a lasting impression, urging readers to confront what has been overlooked.
Set during the silent film era, the narrative follows legendary director Mack Sennett as he reflects on his life, career, and his tumultuous relationship with star Mabel Normand. As he confronts the decline of silent films and the rise of talkies, Mack shares stories of triumph and heartbreak, highlighting the bittersweet nature of his romance with Mabel, whom he helped rise to fame. The production features a celebrated score by Jerry Herman, showcasing beloved songs that enhance the emotional depth of this nostalgic saga.
Bold, gritty and blackly comic, Michael Stewart's new collection of short fiction, Four Letter Words, explores twin contemporary urban dystopias: work and home. A book in two halves: Work explores what paid employment is for many people now: deadening, grinding and underpaid. A barmaid who has to put up with being sexually abused as part of her job, a sex worker who finds out just how far she will go to raise the money she needs to see her son, a painter and decorator who only sees white, a beggar who goes too far, and an office worker who discovers his boss has a skeleton in his closet. Home explores dysfunctional domestic settings. A single mum who has to hand over her child to a violent ex-boyfriend, a woman driven through loneliness to form a relationship with her vacuum cleaner, and an unusual coupling between an advertising exec and a homeless girl. For some home offers little respite from the toil and tyranny of work. Stylish and unsettling with a seam of black comedy running throughout the collection, Four Letter Words is a baker's dozen of modern urban noir that offers responses to a number of contemporary concerns such as homelessness, addiction and sexual exploitation.
See through the eyes of the Brontes as you immerse yourself in their lives and
landscapes, wandering the very same paths they each would have walked in
search of the inspiration behind their novels and poetry. An 'imaginative and
elegant trek through the landscape of the Brontes' Grazia
First published on Valentine's Day 2013, Couples is a blackly comic sequence of poems that explore the nature of co-dependency - of two people who want to be together, but at the same time cannot help but push each other away. Now, the seven-year itch has brought Michael Stewart back to this subject for a new edition; revisiting and rethinking the original poems, and adding a dozen more. The layout of the book is itself a commentary on the phenomenon - the poems are placed in their own 'couples', pairs that face each other across the page. Sometimes they exchange a glance, sometimes they stand side-by-side, staring out into the abyss; only when the book is closed, and they are in darkness, do they truly come together.
Danny Spence plans to stay in Gila Creek for only one night, but then he gets mistaken for a snake named Zeke Tolan, and from then on it is just one damn thing after another. He falls foul of the evil Ma Cole, gets himself on the wrong side of the vicious Hernando Ortiz and his sadistic bodyguard Bracho - and somehow this is all wrapped up with a train full of money that's rolling south of the border, right into the middle of the Mexican revolution.
When a gang of outlaws kill Deputy Jack Tanner's ma and pa, he hunts them down, one by one. The trail leads him deep into the mountains of Mexico, where he encounters the mysterious Queen of Meseta de Plata—boss of the notorious "thieves' town"—and ultimately confronts the gang's leader, the evil Amos Payne.
I am William Lee: brute; liar, and graveside thief. But you will know me by another name. Heathcliff has left Wuthering Heights, and is travelling across the moors to Liverpool in search of his past. Along the way, he saves Emily, the foul-mouthed daughter of a Highwayman, from a whipping, and the pair journey on together. Roaming from graveyard to graveyard, making a living from Emily's apparent ability to commune with the dead, the pair lie, cheat and scheme their way across the North of England. And towards the terrible misdeeds - and untold riches - that will one day send Heathcliff home to Wuthering Heights.
'Mr Jolly' is the first collection of short stories by Michael Stewart, and contains some of the award-winning novelist s most extraordinary writing to date. Each tale offers a unique, utterly compelling insight into the human condition, framed by a mind-bendingly original concept that no other writer working today could or indeed would have concocted. Readers will meet a conformity-obsessed league of bald men, breaking into homes for an extended debate about the nature of freedom; discuss the nomenclature of the marshmallow with a man whose interest in them goes beyond the norm; and meet God, in perhaps the most frustratingly accurate depiction of the divine being in modern literature. Last phone calls, alien abductions, murders and more are grounded in stories of struggling parents, baffled lovers and lost children (some of whom may live permanently on the number 606 bus). However long you live, and however much you read, you ll never find another book quite like this. "
