David Barclay-Miller Books
Volume 1: Through A Glass Darkly
An Autistic Boys Daunting Rite of Passage
The debut book from David Barclay-Miller-available on Amazon- Click here to check on Amazon
This bittersweet Coming of Age book is set in NZ in the 1960s and ‘70’s and comprises a ‘baker’s-dozen’ of darkly humorous yet sad short stories- a rite of passage told in a series of dramatic events and memories.
These vignettes as seen through the eyes of a traumatised unknowingly autistic boy -he seeing ‘Through a Glass Darkly‘.
Captivating compelling and at times harrowing.
Hauntingly honest we travel with the boy on his daunting and sometimes violent rite of passage.
Raised in a religious cult in a small South Island farming and fishing town, his first brutal test of survival was the traditional all boys' high school that would enable entry to University.
Working diverse gruelling jobs-often simultaneously- living in a wood shed while in foster care to finance his studies, he found relief and escape, in a love of outdoor pursuits, art and music.
We observe and listen to his story in a series of memorable-funny and often dangerous settings -as he learns to trust his instincts and survive on his own.
The ‘red thread’ in this book is the enquiry that everyone of us must eventually face- those that ultimately question our notions of our reality, our God, truth, family, love, kindness, our very existence.
Do I even matter?
'...off Papua, Indonesia, on a rig in the Arafura Sea, I did share a bunk room with a man who was, indeed, from a cannibal tribe. He had a head of shiny, tight steel-wool curls, pointy-filed teeth, and he even wore a bone through his nasal septum. But he loved me, so I believed he wouldn’t eat me.
I’d given him an old broken briefcase. He was ecstatic at my gift. He would never put it down, and he even lay on the bed with it, just looking up at me from the bottom bunk on the other side of the room, grinning at me nonstop.'
Excerpt taken from-'Oil Man’
Cover Painting’s Volume 1 by: Laszlo Mathe
‘…..darkly humorous vignettes full of startling empathy and
compelling tales-indeed through a glass darkly!’
-Julian Cowey
COMING SOON-Volume 2 of a 3-Book series
‘…..harrowing and hilarious in equal parts, Barclay-Miller demonstrates a powerful imagination in this collection of evocative stories-delights with its quirky humanity.’
-Fergus Wheatley
Volume 2: Bird on a Wire
Not all Who Wander are Lost
The second volume in a debut series of harrowing and hilarious wanderling short stories.
One mans odyssey looking for purpose and meaning-seeing life through the lens of neuro-divergency. Driven by fear, curiosity, and ambition, it is a poignant roller-coaster ‘rite of passage’, set over 40 years, told as an adrenaline fuelled series of sharply drawn vignettes.
Sometimes achingly sad and harrowing, but also truly funny and uplifting.
We travel with him from dark nights of the soul in a Meo hilltribe’s opium den, to smuggling gemstones through the jungles of Burma, encountering brutal Thai pirates while working oil rigs in the Gulf of Siam, or feasting for days and nights as a Sultan’s guest in a fishing village in Malaysia. Even successfully navigating the City of London’s mean streets of mammon.
An astonishing and often ribald journey of self-discovery from fear and grief to euphoria, to eventual ‘unmasking’, peace and empathetic self-acceptance as having finally become a ‘good man’ with all that entails.
This narrative will awaken in the reader a desire to also travel, to set out an explore both ‘inner and outer space’, to overcome their own fears, unmask and even set out on their own voyage of self-discovery.
‘….He had brought me a piece of cloth -with sacred Arabic verse embroidered on it- to carry in my pocket, and a charm to wear, and he anointed me with a few drops of blessed holy oil. Then placing his hands on my head- he confirmed there had been a black magic spell cast. He told me he would personally ‘swallow’ this evil, and battle this dark magic and even psychically fight the very sorcerer, who had cast this spell -using his own white magic, and by using a ‘silat’ combat routine-a form of spiritual martial art.’
Excerpt taken from ‘Magic in a Magical Time-Ilum Hitam’
Cover Painting’s Volume 2 by: Maxim Fomenko
COMING SOON-Volume 3 of a 3-Book series
Volume 3: The Emperor’s New Clothes
Creatures of the Night
Finally in this evocative confessional memoir, we read another series of acutely observed, deliberately linked vignettes with delight. This book following on from Volume 2.
An astonishing and often ribald journey of self-discovery and transformation. From the greed and betrayal on the streets of Mammon in Hong Kong and London’s City, to fear and loathing in the world of hedge funds and international high finance in Europe, and finally the stripping away of all disguises down to the very core of the man.
We experience crooked business partners duplicity, a week of dubious snipe shooting, the shame and rage of observing a baby beaten while at the bar of the Morrison Hotel in Dublin, of strange grey men in cheap suits setting up ‘Black Ops’ slush funds inside his own company, Interpol investigations, danger, fraud, big money and venal ‘bad- actors’. Surviving, swimming with two legged sharks-and even facing the prospect of potential prison sentences, just after having survived a 2011 Tsunami, in Phuket Thailand.
We journey with Barclay-Miller, experiencing through his various stories, the grief, the demons of self-doubt and the euphoria during his years operating as a finally highly successful serial entrepreneur, following him up to the present day, to his discovery of purpose and the power in random acts of conscious kindness.
Still in therapy after 20 years with the same mentor and guide.
The peace and panic felt during a midnight walk along a Swedish beach and up into a pine forest-rendering him blind and defenceless- in Creatures of the Night.
We conclude with his eventual autistic ‘unmasking’, observing the vulnerability, but also now understanding and the self-acceptance that comes from stripping off that husk, the ‘bloodied beaten black armour‘ such our protagonist can now thrive, not just survive-be true to his real identity.
Different, not less
His European sojourn ends up with him retired but now thriving; still active and writing, living with his wife, children and five dogs in Sweden and Malta, loved and supported by his close family.
‘I had rolled over on my side, barely conscious when my wife, security, the store manageress- and a bit later- the paramedics arrived. The first, to aid and abet me- the paras to render some first aid, the latter, to head off any legal liability at the pass, and the security, to add gravitas and look a little threatening! The crowds stared, and yet some people still stepped over me to get onto the up-escalator.’
’Excerpt from ‘Baby Basher at the Morrison Hotel’
Cover Painting’s Volume 3 by: Laszlo Mathe
‘Thoroughly enjoyable, a compelling and quirky read, elegant yet punchy, with a hefty sprinkling of expletives…’
-Anton Majrud-Ahaus, Sweden