The Eighth Image

A novel, set in London, that explores the relationship between writing, photography and the creative impulse. Al Colwyn, an aspiring and out-of-work writer, is commissioned to write a series of short stories to accompany a selection of photographs produced by Henry Graham Wilkes, a renowned photographer whom no one seems to have met. Colwyn seeks to track down and identify his unknown collaborator and quickly becomes obsessed with the mysterious and elusive HGW and is increasingly uncertain if he is imagining the connections and coincidences he uncovers and observes. As he tries to track Wilkes’ movements by mapping the sites and locations of the images, he uncovers confusing and contradictory clues that reflect his own creative dilemma. The resulting eight stories which connect aspects of the locations and themes to the images he has been sent are eventually completed, but they are as much about Colwyn’s own beliefs, obsessions and uncertainties.