On the Heroism of Mortals

This is a collection of eleven short stories whose common theme is the heroism of our flawed lives. It explores the arduousness of people's lives and covers such diverse subjects as human solidarity, generational change, single parenthood, domestic violence, the tragic complexity of revolution, police brutality, artistic hubris, and the limitations of rationalism. In "The Hat", a polish Jew on the run in Eastern Europe goes down to a town in search for food and, noticing the large number of German soldiers on patrol, hides himself in a funeral procession. But he stands out as the only mourner without a hat. As he walks along, another man places his hat on the fugitive's head: an example of man's humanity to man. In "Living with the Polish Count", the young Soviet Republic struggles to keep foreign and reactionary forces at bay and in so doing loses the morality that initially inspired them. In "The Selfish Geneticist", lunch in a smart restaurant exposes the rift between two academics, both dogmatic and contemptuous of others, but one more strictly rational and the other more influenced by his human emotions.

On The Golden Menagerie: "It is consistently fascinating and readable, the work of a writer of high intelligence who has a stylish way with words." - Eric Hobsbawm On The Berlusconi Bonus: "A profound, intelligent novel that asks serious adult questions about what it means to be alive." - The Herald On In Praise of the Garrulous: "A deeply reflective, extraordinarily wide-ranging meditation on the nature of language, infused in its every phrase by a passionate humanism" - Terry Eagleton On Can the Gods Cry: "His dozen stories are bracingly different, weaving changes in tone and format, and in varieties of language, ranging from street-smart to the quasi-academic. - the reader's reward is often to hear the distant rumble of the Gods of rational discourse - crying out, inciting passion, and sometimes laughing as they go." - The Scotsman

Allan Cameron was born in 1952 and grew up in Nigeria and Bangladesh. He has written two novels, The Golden Menagerie (Luath Press, 2004), partly based on Apuleius' The Golden Ass but also a polemic against it, and The Berlusconi Bonus, a political satire principally directed at Western consumerism, the policies of Bush and Blair, and Fukuyama's now disowned victory song of American capitalism. His non-fiction work, In Praise of the Garrulous, is an examination of the essentiality of language to human nature. The first of two collection of short stories, Can the Gods Cry?, was published in 2011, and this volume is its companion. He does not speak the truth to power, as power never listens or only listens to other power, but he does continue to write the truth about power, as he sees it, and to demonstrate his admiration for the powerless and their prodigious resilience.