The Rainbow Man

by David Gardiner

Twenty-three tales bound together by the apocryphal utterances of the Rainbow Man, a strange, misunderstood figure who shows the children of his town how to live in their dreams and nurture their imaginations. The stories range widely, some humorous, some extremely dark, all offering distinctive outlooks on the world, all of them stories, in the full-blooded sense, with beginnings, middles, and ends. They will take you from the war-ravaged wastelands of a Central European dictatorship to the pleasant sun-drenched slopes of a Thai hillside where a Nazi warcriminal hides from his pursuers, to the gloomy concrete wasteland of the South London suburbs where God decides to make a guest appearance, and always back to Ireland, where it's usually raining. Don't think you're going to get off lightly though: these stories require the engagement of the mind, and may permanently affect how you look at yourself and other people.

244 pages, Paperback

First published January 30, 2004