Publisher's Synopsis
In "Out of Hand", the narrator is the severed right hand of a gifted artist imprisoned in a bottle of formaldehyde and is tormented by his immobilised imagination. While he despises the mundane man to who he was attached, he bitterly envies his freedom. In "Didn't I Always Know" the voice is that of a middle-aged woman sliding into chaos and madness knowing that her freedom of imagination is a ruinous burden. In "Deathman", the speaker is a young architect who comes to face to face with an ancient master of death and struggles against the terrible duty that is laid upon him against his will.. These stories portray the confrontation with death and each narrator pays the price of being human -- the price of their very lives, whether they live or die in the act. As in all his work, Leon Whiteson is both passionate yet subtle, violent yet tender and offers his readers another radical entry into the heart of darkness. Deathman was broadcast by the BBC in 1970 under the title "Blood of the Lamb" and starred the famous Royal Shakespeare Company actor Frank Finlay.
