The life of Henry Rhodes Hamilton is too strange and sprawling to be contained in any book, which perhaps is why only the index to his life story survives. Sample entries:
“Avignon, birthplace of HRH, 9-13, childhood holidays, 27; research at Pasteur Institute of Ophthalmology, 101; attempts to restore anti-Papacy, 420-35
“Schweitzer, Albert, receives HRH, 199; performs organ solo for HRH, 201; discusses quest for the historical Jesus with HRH, 203-11; HRH compared to by Leonard Bernstein, 245; expels HRH, 246”
One of Ballard’s funniest and most playful experiments with form, and the sort of thing that makes any writer who encounters it curse themselves for not thinking of it first.
First published in Bananas magazine, 1977. Collected in War Fever, Collins, 1964 and Complete Stories Vol 1, Flamingo, 2001. Also published in The Paris Review, 1991, and available to subscribers to read online here. Also anthologised in That Glimpse of Truth: 100 of the Finest Short Stories Ever Written, ed. David Miller, Head of Zeus, 2014
A Personal Anthology 