Hough's Hereafter

William Hough, retired civil servant, dies in his sleep, aged eighty-nine. In a dream, or vision, he passes through the stations of an afterlife which, on the model of Dante, are situations appropriate to the way life has been lived. He is looking, as he journeys, for the place of his own belonging.

He passes firstly through the places of THE LOST, from his school bully to the great tyrants, those whose humanity has variously failed them and been inflicted upon others; THE ABANDONED, those who have been lost to madness or addiction; THE UNRECONCILED, who have not been able to live beyond terrible injustices to which they have been subjected; then THE RECONCILED, those who have done, in some instances, terrible things, but have become reconciled and freed from the retribution their crimes perhaps have merited; and finally, THE LIBERATED, those whose lives have been fulfilled, socially and privately. 


In this final realm, after a journey shadowed at times by doubt and shame, William triumphantly finds himself.