Choices - Fiction
Natural Flights of the Human Mind by Clare Morrall
Natural Flights of the Human Mind by Clare Morrall
The subject of Natural Flights of the Human Mind is guilt: the guilt felt by a man who crashed a small airplane into a train as a youth, killing 87 people, and the guilt felt by a woman who worries that her sister's suicide may have somehow been her fault. Both characters live with guilt as a daily companion, and both come up with strategies for protecting themselves from its worst ravages. Imogen Doody feeds an ever-present anger, and meets the world with a large chip on her shoulder. Peter Straker lives alone in a crumbling lighthouse on the Devon coast, doesn’t speak at all, and surrounds himself with numbers and strictly observed routines. When they encounter each other by chance, each one is somehow forced to step outside the cocoons of habitual behaviour in which they have felt safe for many years. As we watch these two characters come awake to larger possibilities in their lives, it becomes clear that living beyond guilt is a creative process.
10 copies
