''Once in a Blue Moon'' (2003) is the second collection of
short stories
A short story is a piece of prose fiction that typically can be read in one sitting and focuses on a self-contained incident or series of linked incidents, with the intent of evoking a single effect or mood. The short story is one of the oldest t ...
by
Magnus Mills
Magnus Mills (born in 1954 in Birmingham) is an English fiction writer and bus driver. He is best known for his first novel, '' The Restraint of Beasts'', which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and praised by Thomas Pynchon.
Background
Magn ...
. As in his novels, each is told by an unnamed narrator :
*"Once in a Blue Moon" in which the narrator acts as negotiator in an armed siege between the police and his mother.
*"The Good Cop" in which he is
interrogated
Interrogation (also called questioning) is interviewing as commonly employed by law enforcement officers, military personnel, intelligence agencies, organized crime syndicates, and terrorist organizations with the goal of eliciting useful informa ...
by one or possibly two identical policemen.
*"They Drive by Night" in which he is picked up as a hitch-hiker by a large lorry in which he sits in the noisy cab between the driver and his mate and attempts to make sense of the conversation.
*"Screwtop Thompson" in which he is a child and receives as a present "Screwtop Thompson" a toy whose head unscrews and which came in several guises. The narrator chose a policeman but received a schoolmaster....without a head.
The stories also appear in the later collection, ''
Screwtop Thompson'', published in 2010 by
Bloomsbury Press
Bloomsbury Publishing plc is a British worldwide publishing house of fiction and non-fiction. It is a constituent of the FTSE SmallCap Index. Bloomsbury's head office is located in Bloomsbury, an area of the London Borough of Camden. It has a U ...
.
External links
The Good Coponline text
www.bookmunch.co.uk
{{Magnus Mills
2003 short story collections
British short story collections