The View from Mount Dog

Description

James Hamilton-Paterson's first collection of stories was published in 1986: in a prefatory note the author claims inspiration from the 'putative memory' of a Cynic philosopher whose 'brilliant crabbiness' saw him exiled to the foothills of the titular Mount Dog. The collection that follows is a disquietingly humorous volume which tilts the reader's perception of the world just sufficiently as to make the bizarre seem ordinary and the mundane utterly extraordinary. What is happening in a world where a 41-year-old scriptwriter who despises sport becomes the greatest athlete who ever lived, and the Virgin Mary tangles with the Peace Corps? From England to the Philippines, from the Middle East to South America, the stories contained herein portray a world far stranger and less governed than we might care to admit.

James Hamilton-Paterson is the author of the bestselling Empire of the Clouds, which was hailed as a classic account of the golden age of British aviation. He won a Whitbread Prize for his first novel, Gerontius, and among his many other celebrated books are Seven-Tenths, one of the finest books written in recent times about the oceans, the satirical trilogy that began with Cooking with Fernet Branca, and the autobiographical Playing With Water. Born and educated in England, he has lived in the Philippines and Italy and now makes his home in Austria.