Back-stabbing and character-assassination in a Newton Abbot nudist colony in the early 80-s, when new manager Michaela Laporta is brought in to rationalise the show and introduce Thatcherite economics to the bumbling sunworshippers. Soon Ms Laporta has introduced a round-robin to the table-tennis tournament and a complex tariff structure, such that access to the pool, the sauna and massage rooms, and to the volley-ball courts, is strictly regulated according to ability to pay. The ensuing conflict and its resolution is rendered with an acid pen. The contrast between the power-dressing Ms Laporta and the naked honesty of the nudists might well have been called a triumph of symbolic juxtaposition.
Narcissus Untold by Len Blatt
A truly disturbing novelette. A lonely car park attendant whose hobby is kidnapping shopping trolleys and sending ransome notes to the supermarkets, turns over a new leaf. He falls in love. With himself. But has he found his true self? A tempestuous relationship ends with a broken heart, and new despair. Will he ever find himself? Will he ever find his essential soul companion? The author's refusal to answer these questions invests this story with real mystery. From the author of "Ever Peripheral", "Sundered Hopes", and "Shards of Me". (Len Blatt has recently published a volume of poetry entitled "Nascent Ellipse".)
