The Waiting Room

In this 1967 novel Wilson Harris explores the spiritual and psychic realities beyond the mundane facts of relationships, boldly constructing his story on the basis of fragments. When the Forrestals died in an explosion that wrecked their home and destroyed most of its contents, there survived a disjointed diary - or 'log book', as Susan Forrestal called it. She had suffered from an affliction of the eyes which, after three operations, left her almost blind. Abandoned by her lover, who disappeared without a trace, she eventually married a kind and solicitous husband; nevertheless her lover continued to haunt her in such a way that his presence had an almost living reality. 'I admire Wilson Harris's novels greatly; he is one of the very few living novelists whose works are too brief for my tastes.' Anthony Burgess