John Fraser

's' John Fraser

'S' is a novel about what makes a person a person - and a 'good' person or 'bad' one - and poses the question: What do we become when we live in cities and improvise for ourselves something for us to do with our lives?

Gary, abandoned at birth, seeks his city, the city of 'S'. Once found, it should give direction - an origin, perhaps a destiny. Gary is a joker, a refuser - a music agent who can't stand noise. He seeks clues regarding his origins - camels? Sex? Friendship? He goes to rehab. Maybe punishment brings meaningful reflection and some purging, purity? He's sent to the Dark City - where life is precarious: there's smuggling; crime in the pool hall... He's dependent on Fancy, his crone landlady, but plague and rioting force him out.

Gary's first venture has been mythic, religious. The second is history - the city is divided into nationalities, exile quarters - each with a project: the Russians aim to copy the great bell of Kiev, but Gary's own efforts end in violence and defeat. He finds a post as gatekeeper, deciding who enters and who's excluded from the city - but his partner takes a less philosophical type, Puma, and he is set to wandering along the road, looking for the source of purity, the city of his birth which he now believes did not exist, or exists no longer.