Author Description

Brian works in the National Archives in London on a new project to identify connections between the past and the future, learning from false assumptions, and the conditions creating alternative choices which influence future events. He meets Jessica who challenges him to come to terms with a new age of legislation restricting male assumptions about women following the MeToo campaigns. These conversations thread their way through the story, as he tries to cope with different situations, tempted, in his own vulnerability, to talk about misandy to balance her views about misogyny. At the same time, his project takes him to China and a difficult relationship with a minister in the Foreign Office. She is suspicious of his visits to Russia, at a time when a new Cold War is breaking out. In China, he is hosted by Wang Shu and her father who spend long hours talking with him about the meaning of 'civilisation' and the need to challenge Western assumptions. She offers him the teachings of Lao Tsu to help him through his dilemmas and his continuing sense of vulnerability. The women in his life, his secretary Shirley, Jessica, Wang Shu and Mary - an entrepreneur on his project board - all seem to have different views and send out different messages; enough perhaps to make any man more confused, even when he is trying to make sense of international relationships, let alone personal ones! Who will he listen to most? And where will his thoughts and conversations take him in the dilemmas of his times?