Cirrus@Austlit

'The debut collection of fiction by Nicholas John Turner describes a world on the fringes of great art; editors, audiences, academics, amateurs, lovers, failures, onlookers and innocent bystanders.

'Each of these elusive stories emerges from its narrator's mind and works its way under the reader's skin. From a Centenarian stuck in a shrinking Parisian apartment, to twins arranging escorts on the Caribbean Coast; in place of clear narratives, straightforward logic, and neatly extractable meaning, Turner imposes the strange and irreducible philosophies of his marginal narrators.

'The effect is a series of curious and intimate profiles that brings an unnerving denominator to the surface, and takes the reader where mere pointing will not.

'Darkly comic, intellectually playful, its complexity unfolding with originality and deftness, 'Hang Him When He Is Not There' is a meditation on the relationship between artists and subjects, creations and beholders, and ultimately between violence and victims.' (Publication summary)