The
Soul of the City
Author: John McMillan
Publisher: iUniverse
Pages: 310
Genre: Literary Fiction
Format: Kindle
The Soul of the City
is a tale of two cities, Belfast and London, in the heady, liberating days of
the late 1960s and early 1970s. Young Jim Mitchell moves through a succession
of jobs, girlfriends and apartments in the quest for personal fulfillment and
his dream of becoming a writer in the face of often dispiriting circumstances.
There is the trauma of his affair with Maureen, an older, married woman, and
the trap of his career on the unrelenting white-collar production line of the
“Ministry of Truth”, against the background of civil rights protest and the
onset of the troubles in Belfast.
Escaping to the space
and freedom of London, Jim tries to live the dream of the bohemian writer but
all too soon there is the pressing need to earn a living in the more mundane
occupations on offer in the metropolis. Just when all seems lost, Jim meets and
falls in love with the beautiful Anglo- Irish student Bridget and is drawn into
an exciting student-hippy milieu of experimentation, idealism and fun.
However, such
pleasures are by definition transient and the young couple, Jim and Bridget,
must strike out on their own, exploring love, intimacy and enlightenment
together in their ongoing search for the soul of the city.
John McMillan writes
with an unfailing eye for the telling detail and an irrepressible native
humour. He balances an acute social awareness and sense of history with a
strong lyrical feeling for the underlying meaning and beauty of life.
The search for the
soul of the city is nothing less than the search for the soul of a man and a
woman in our time.
Follow the tour:
Monday,
June 2
Tuesday,
June 3
Wednesday,
June 4
Thursday,
June 5
Friday,
June 6
Monday,
June 9
Tuesday,
June 10
Wednesday,
June 11
Thursday,
June 12
Friday,
June 13
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