Souls in the Twilight

As the lights that have guided us go out, people begin to wander in the twilight, seeking their place of belonging. In these stories, set in recent times, but before the blinding glare of social media, Roger Scruton describes the remembered landscapes of people who are not where they belong, and not quite where they wished to be. With unfailing lightness of touch, Scruton portrays characters who cannot let go of the past: Yusuf, set on a path of revenge that bears no relation to his teenage life; Bill who wanders the world in his imagination but cannot leave his suburban living room; Sarah, whose insane mission to save the Lebanese Christians brings disaster to the only person she loves; Veronica, whose determination to look the truth in the face wraps her young life in deception—all of them lost to their surroundings and yet touchingly seeking a home in them. Lovers of the short story will love these for their insight and poetic drama.

“Sartre said that fiction should 'toss the reader from consciousness to consciousness'. This will be the experience of the reader of Souls in the Twilight. In these brilliant and insightful stories Scruton turns the unpeeled gaze of a poet on the worlds he imagines with such psychological penetration. His perfect pitch for inner and outer voices makes his unforgettable, disturbing characters truly present. Souls in the Twilight will reverberate in the mind for a long time”

Sartre said that fiction should "toss the reader from consciousness to consciousness". This will be the experience of the reader of Souls in the Twilight. In these brilliant and insightful stories Scruton turns the unpeeled gaze of a poet on the worlds he imagines with such psychological penetration. His perfect pitch for inner and outer voices makes his unforgettable, disturbing characters truly present. Souls in the Twilight will reverberate in the mind for a long time -- Raymond Tallis
"In [Scruton's] writings and reflections, elegiac but never despairing, human loss gives away to intimations of transcendence Scruton's multifaceted exploration of what it means to be a relational and responsible person is one of the great philosophical and literary projects of our time." Daniel J. Mahoney, The New Criterion

Roger Scruton is a freelance writer and philosopher, who rescued himself from the academy twenty years ago. He currently lives in rural Wiltshire, England. He has held posts in the American Enterprise Institute, and in the Ethics and Public Policy Center. He is married with two children. He is the author of 40 books, including five works of fiction, and composed two operas. He is widely known on both sides of the Atlantic as a public intellectual with a broadly conservative vision. His acclaimed novel about communist Czechoslovakia, Notes from Underground, was published by Beaufort Books in 2014.

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