Prisoner in a Red-Rose Chain

M. Wayne Cunningham is a past executive director of the Saskatchewan
Arts Board and the former director of Academic and Career Programs at
East Kootenay Community College.

Jeremy Davenant believes that his life is fated to follow the script of
an “S” page randomly torn from an encyclopedia. The setting shifts
from North Yorkshire, England, to North York, Canada, to Montreal where
Jeremy used forged documents to finagle a teaching post at the
university. As he bumbles around, barely escaping detection by his
colleagues and superiors, he relates episodes in his life to the entries
on “the page.” He observes his neighbor, Milena, “in shadowy
profile” and pursues her as his own Dark Lady; he researches shaking
palsy and the rumor Shakespeare suffered from it; he connects Milena’s
father, Walter, to the Walter of A Yorkshire Tragedy; he follows Milena
to Shakhtyorsk, which coincidentally is his landlord’s birthplace; he
acts out his fantasies of Shakuntala, complete with the purchase of a
mood ring that gets lost; and he becomes involved at the edges of a
murder.

Prisoner in a Red-Rose Chain is satiric, raucous, and wildly inventive.
Readers who journey through Jeremy’s madcap world of anagrams,
astrological signs, cabalistic connections, and ominous portents will be
richly rewarded.