Author(s): Chad Taylor

NZ Fiction

The sun rises over an Antipodean cityscape. A municipal dumpster, wired shut, contains the unidentifiable corpse of an ageing junkie, his face and body lacerated by the broken glass cuts sustained while trying to escape. Ellerslie Penrose, part-time futures broker and full-time existentialist, finds the victim's wallet at the scene and is drawn obliquely into an attempt to explain this hideous murder. Trawling through an increasingly bizarre series of fantasy bordellos, railway shunting yards and steamy Japanese noodle houses, Penrose begins to sense the extent of the evil he is up against, an evil that can defy time itself. By turns hallucinatory and erotic, Shirker is a terrifying exploration of violent and sexually-charged obsessions. The cool, poetic prose of Chad Taylor establishes him as one of the finest new voices in contemporary fiction.