Taking Comfort [Hardcover]

"There is much to recommend in this novel. Morris can write, and write well."

"Full marks to Macmillan New Writing for publishing this novel. . . an excellent novel and one I would recommend."

"a book which opens up your perceptions, challenges your assumptions and
makes you think about language."

What can you do to feel safe in a dangerous world? When Rob Saunders witnesses a young Japanese student commit suicide, he impulsively takes the folder she dropped as she threw herself under a tube train. He finds himself taking souvenirs from a series of tragic or threatening events, at the same time initiating an edgy affair with a work colleague. His behaviour becomes increasingly obsessive. The lines blur between witnessing, seeking out, and initiating tragedy. Things spiral out of control when he discovers a dead body while he's jogging in the woods. Stylistically bold, technically accomplished, this fast-paced pageturner explores the anxieties and survival strategies of a post-9/11 world.

Roger Morris is a writer and advertising copywriter whose clients have included Penguin Books and The Guardian. His short fiction has been published in a number of mainstream, genre and literary publications. One of his short stories, The Devil's Drum, appeared in the Horror Anthology Darkness Rising and was subsequently made into an opera performed by the Solaris Musical Theatre Company in the Purcell Room on London's South Bank.

2. The Snoopy ring binder

He feels a brim of sweat insinuate itself between fingers and handle. He is focussed on that film, on how it lends a granular quality to the beautiful vegetable tanned leather of the handle. Is that the salt? he wonders. He wants to wash his hands but he’s standing on the down escalator in Highgate tube station. Suddenly the air around him is grainy.

He watches the theatre ads pass by, shows he will never see, and the vitamin ads and the cereal bar ads. He wonders at the significance of them. Not what are they saying to him, but what do they say about him? Why are they placed here for him to see? What are the demographic assumptions? Shows he will never see, vitamins he will never take, cereal bars he will never eat. And the high energy drinks ads. He feels complicated by the ads, sad and slightly resentful, the way he feels after watching certain American TV series, the ones that Julia likes. He feels that the ads have placed him in a false position. That he must now go to the shows, take the vitamins, eat the cereal bars, drink the high energy drinks or run the risk of being superfluous. And he is willing to do it, he feels he must do it, because doing it is what the world expects of him.