America Awaits Us, My Lovely, and Other Stories

The most wholesome (and surreal) moment I had in 2024 was meeting Christopher Owen in London. We connected virtually during the first wave of Covid in 2020, when I read two plays that he wrote and blindly contacted him. We stayed in touch via e-mail and Facebook, and more than four years later, we finally met in person. At the age of 87, he is more creatively active than most people I know, and he gave me two books that he wrote and got published -- both collections of excellent, witty short stories, with the quirkiest of characters. Writer, director, actor, so much experience in theatre -- the man is a legend.

A remarkable collection of stories in different settings and different periods, about ordinary people in apparently everyday situations, each of which has nevertheless its own specific history and its own poignancy. There is Derek, who uses his dog to make conversational contact with people. There is the widowed 65-yearold former actress Sarah, attending Cognitive Behavioural Therapy sessions and calling the cat by her husband's name of Gerry. There is Bernard, a paedophile on remand, trying pathetically to make some human contact with his wife. There is Ellen and her group of Liverpool cleaners in World War 1, carrying on after a couple of the husbands have been sunk at sea. The author is very good on descriptive detail and the observation is both sympathetic and acute, but the outstanding quality of these stories is that he has the actor's gift of writing not just from within the situation, but from within the character's own mind and in the character's own language. HIghly recommended.

A wonderful story collection! They are so touching, unflinching, melancholy. And the misplaced optimism so gently dismissed - oh dear- everybody just about holding on. You have a terrific ear for dialogue - and I like the way the language is stripped down and the characters too, stripped of more and more identity. Chris Buckton, writer, educationist.

It was beautifully written and really evocative of a particular time and place' – , with reference to the story ‘Ellen'.

It was beautifully written and really evocative of a particular time and place' – , with reference to the story ‘Ellen'.