The Iron Mouth

Beryl Fletcher

The first problem is the return of the nightmare. Elena dreams of a white horse lying dead in a river; a mare with a huge pale wound in her side. She lies half out of the water, her wound washed clean and cold by the moving current. Elena attempts to call out the mare’s name but her throat is frozen with grief. Khryse is writing a film script based on The Iliad. As the script unfolds, some of the lives around her also unravel. Khryse notices the refracting Homeric world on the border between the modern city and its seafront.

Narratives of death, betrayal and glory are entangled in lives disrupted by violence, love, sex and obsession.

1993 | ISBN 9781875559220 | Paperback | 200 x 130 mm | 273 pp