The Lie In The Mouth

Book excerpt: Gorelov wakes up in an alleyway in the middle of the London riots suffering from a dissociative fugue. Unaware of his identity and having lost his memory, he is rescued by a stranger who guides him out of the riot and on to a journey to help him recover his identity. Is consciousness possible in the absence of memory? The journey ahead is an examination of memory and consciousness told through the allegory of alcoholism using Dante's circles of hell; every door that is opened in order to escape an unending London night of bars and pubs leads not to freedom but to another bar, another circle of hell, and another level of personal crisis, weakness and addiction. The bars and pubs feature cameo appearances by various dead poets and writers, mass murderers, living oligarchs, terrorists, goddesses, Victorian Imperialists, North Korean female soldiers, punk rockers and armed paramilitary thugs among many others and all along the path, Gorelov is haunted by a woman who he may or may not have murdered.