Book review: All the Places I’ve Ever Lived by David Gaffney

The doctor stares down at my skin.

“You don’t know how it happened?”

I shake my head. “I don’t remember anything.”

“You say you were reading something.”

I try and remember.

“There was this book...”

She sighs. 

“Do you remember the name on the spine?" 

Silence. 

"Was it... David Gaffney?”

I look up.

“There’s been an outbreak,” she explains. “Early-stage Gaffney-exposure. We’re trying to keep an eye on it. Feral themes cloaked in prosaic absurdity, witty period pop-references, slippery plotting: it’s burying beneath peoples’ mental defences and planting itself in their subconscious.” The doctor stands up and walks over to the calendar, then picks up a rectractable biro. “We think it might be spreading.”

I swallow. My skin is burning.

“Doctor,” I say, “am I going to be okay?”

She turns back and looks me up and down. She clicks the biro, twice.

“Of course. Just sit tight. A couple of men from the Ministry will want to talk to you.”

“What men?”

She turns and scribbles something on a pad. “Nothing to worry about.”

My eyes narrow. The calendar on the wall...

“Doctor,” I say. “What year is it?”

“What do you mean?”

“I...”

She looks me hard between the eyes.

“It’s 1976,” she says. “Now don’t you worry. Lie back and close your eyes and everything will be okay.”

- Dale Lately

All the Places I’ve Ever Lived by David Gaffney is out now on Urbane Books