You never know what fatal misstep tomorrow might bring....

There's always hope, they say. To raise our expectations, cheat us and leave us worse than ever before. Yes, my friend, life is difficult, life is a struggle – with failed hopes and bitter disappointments thrown in to kick us when we're down. So, let's look on the bright side. It ain't so bad when it happens to fictional characters. In fact, it's quite fun....

In these six short stories, meet the lovestruck author and fashion designer who dream of escaping their humdrum existence as insurance administrator and florist, the born loser whose new job overseas offers him the chance to start his life afresh, the shy nice-guy threatened by redundancy and his new neighbour – the mysterious nurse who moves into the block of flats just as they are about to be demolished, the pretentious couple whose film evenings cannot disguise their disastrous relationship, the man who feels sidelined by the world and the great Russian writer, for whom life has dealt a bitter blow.

Looking at six characters, Futility explores the moment life changed. Or didn't. The missed opportunity, the fateful decision, the hoist petard and sheer bad luck; all are placed under the microscope....

After reading Futility, you'll be wondering who it is alongside you

"Now that I've finished the book, I'll be looking over my shoulder for that deranged stranger who could walk up to me and manipulate himself/herself into my life. Or, I'll look at someone sitting on a park bench and wonder what's their story. This is the effect this book has had on me." – Satabdi Mukherjee, Reedsy Discovery

An Interview with the Author

What made you write Futility?

I hadn't written any contemporary literary fiction and I wanted to write a collection of stories that captured points where people's lives changed and explore the thought processes that there.

What inspired you?

I like unreliable narrators. We follow their twisted thoughts and distorted logic, which seem at odds from everything around them. It makes for great tragedy or great comedy. Or both combined.

Why unreliable narrators?

As readers, we never know where the unreliable narrator is leading us. It means we have to watch them carefully, which makes for a more challenging and more interesting read.

A more challenging and more interesting read? Explain yourself!

Anthony Burgess deliberately told A Clockwork Orange from the perspective of a wrongdoer, because it illustrated his moral point most starkly. In the same way, I occasionally like to put readers in a bad character's mind. The reader gets to know them, understand them, sympathise with them, then at the last minute find out that they're a really bad apple. It's only by getting into their mind that we see where they've gone wrong. Stories that safely follow a good, innocent protagonist can't do this.

What about unwritten endings?

From a fictional perspective, what hasn't been written, hasn't happened, so leaving the ending open leaves the possibility of a hopeful resolution. Life is not about inevitabilities: even te most deluded unreliable of narrators has to make choices.

And what of the written ending?

I wanted to end on a hopeful note, with a reliable narrator. I've always been inspired by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's story. There's an immense force of optimism that runs through his writing, scything through the greatest of...