A Day Like Any Other

Series

Name: Salt Modern Stories   Number: 17

Synopsis

‘A stunning new collection of twelve short stories from award-winning author Guy Ware.’

Praise for Previous Work

‘(On The Peckham Experiment) ★★★★ For all its topical resonance – amid a national housing crisis and the long aftermath of the Grenfell Tower fire – the novel’s fatalistic register and taut, controlled narrative voice, by turns doleful and sardonic, set it apart from the preachier political allegories that are currently in such oversupply. Ware’s narrator has kept the faith, but he is under no illusions: “the universe is not moral and history has no arc. Its trajectory is an irregular spiral, turning constantly in upon itself ... If there is an end, a destination beyond mere annihilation, it is lost to sight.”’ —Houman Barekat, The Telegraph

‘(On The Fat of Fed Beasts) Fleshing out the shadowy metaphysical hints of Beckett’s novels, this intellectual romp is the best debut I have read in years.’ —Nicholas Lezard, The Guardian

‘(On Our Island Story) Denis’ story is an example of the comedy Ware injects into the novel, yet it also adds to the atmosphere of hopelessness – a futile effort, as futile as the debate over whether the Island is real or a simulation as, either way, no one is intending to take any action that might improve the lives of the Islanders (sound familiar?). Ware satirises contemporary Britain in numerous ways without overloading the novel as the island setting ensures each aspect of comparison is concrete, and the small cast of characters keeps its interactions credible. And so, we have a small group of people, often related, passing power around; debates and even referenda designed simply to create conflict and hinder action; and carefully a curated mythology used to make elevation to power seem inevitable. Ware even manages to throw in an inquiry into police brutality that is constantly delayed, and a spad who is also a poet.’ —Grant Rintoul, 1st Reading

‘(On The Faculty of Indifference) Ordinary life is a terrifying prospect in this existential satire about a London spook … The Faculty of Indifference is a book of dark shadows and dry humour. It’s a comedy about torture, death and loneliness, and an existential drama about a world that swirls and twists and turns on us without provocation.’ —James Smart, The Guardian

‘(On Reconciliation) Reconciliation opens with an intriguing apology by the author ‘for the extent to which my characters fail to resemble their real-life models’. This indicates a central concern of Guy Ware’s novel: namely, how the fiction writer appropriates ‘facts’ to create a story. It’s a preoccupation that informs the book’s highly original narrative structure … a memorable and inventive meditation on reconciliation, in the sense of both settling differences and squaring the facts.’ —Tom Williams, The Literary Review