Coping With Pleasure

by David Owen

Pluto Hartwig has got it all charm, humour, style, an equally sophisticated and loving wife, a beautiful home and a glorious Australian lifestyle, a successful career as a researcher, loyal friends and a devoted red setter. So why doesn't he feel happier? Like bad weather approaching, the unfolding year brings with it a vague feeling of unease which gradually taints everything Pluto holds dear; the Prof Jim Harris episode and the 1949 Norton Dominator affair can only add to the enveloping despair. Pluto's wife Mintie is forced to watch with apprehension the struggle to regain his once so certain equilibrium a desperate battle to maintain appearances while all is fracturing around him and the fight to recognise and assert his own needs, no matter how uncomfortable. It's all part of learning to cope with pleasure. Praise for Eden and Venter and Son: 'Nothing should detract from the excellence of Owen's writing.. . This is fiction with a purpose ... I shall make a point of reading anything else he cares to write' Justin Wintle, The Independent 'Unbearable tension, terrifying, slightly surreal, but horribly convincing' Jan Dalley, Observer

224 pages, Paperback

First published June 25, 1990

About the author

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David Owen was born in Zimbabwe in 1956 and grew up in Malawi and Swaziland. He completed his education in South Africa and then spent some years working in London. He migrated to Australia in 1986. A past editor of Island magazine, he writes fiction and nonfiction. He is now settled in Tasmania.