The Alarming Palsy of James Orr by Tom Lee.
The Alarming Palsy of James Orr by Tom Lee.
The Alarming Palsy of James Orr by Tom Lee.
The Alarming Palsy of James Orr by Tom Lee.

Book review: Tom Lee's The Alarming Palsy of James Orr, a sinister novella of great skill


  • English
  • Arabic

James Orr is an ordinary, if unusually well-adjusted, guy: democratic, egalitarian, environmentally conscientious, civic-minded. He is a loving and dependable partner to his wife, Sarah; a dedicated father to his young children, Sammy and Laura; and an assiduous, capable employee in the world of project management. Striving to be a good neighbour and citizen, he chairs a local residents' committee, where he is admired for his organisational energy and interpersonal prowess. He has not taken an unscheduled day off work in two years. He even has human foibles – most notably an apparently benign crush on his friend and neighbour, Connie Fuller.

Yet when we encounter James at the start of this slender, disruptive and chilling novella, these qualities are under siege. Something, he intuits, has changed. James’s first intimation of the transition arrives when he wakes one morning, slightly later than usual, with the sense that there has occurred “some indefinable shift in the natural order of things”. And when he encounters his wife on the landing of the family home, he is confronted with a vision of shock and dismay – “‘Oh!’ said Sarah Orr, and put her hand to her mouth in genuine alarm” – and a clue as to what might really be amiss. Trudging to the bathroom mirror, he finds in its glass a picture of gruesome metamorphosis: the left-hand side of his face has collapsed. It is sliding from its bony scaffolding like melting wax.

The superficial effects of the mutation are extensive. James's skin has become "yellowed, bloodless, and a little shiny"; he has difficulty eating, talking, smiling (his attempts at the last of these issue in something "appalling"); he is unable to move his facial muscles, unable even to blink; and his drooping lower eyelid exposes a horrifying and mercurial eyeball – now parched and in need of refreshment from eye drops; now shedding cataracts of humiliating tears. A trip to the doctor yields a diagnosis of Bell's palsy. James is signed off work to focus on his convalescence, and as he returns with Sarah to the home that it had always seemed their destiny to own, he is filled with an enlivening apprehension of life's "infinite possibility".

It is a sensation that doesn't last long. Faced with an autobahn of solitary days at home, he toys with the idea of pursuing the "ordinary fantasies" – books he hasn't read, friends he hasn't seen, the musical instrument he might eventually learn – he had once dreamed of fulfilling while consumed by work and family. But these he does not pursue. Instead, he takes long walks in the local woods, and finds himself repeatedly drawn to an old folly. When he visits, he sees the signs and registers the presence of a strange man who is rumoured to live there. And although James has never seen him, his visits to the residence routinely imbue him with the suspicion he is being watched.

As the weeks slip by, James’s condition shows no sign of improving. He sleeps in the day and starts to feel that he has been robbed of something ineffable. And his behaviour becomes increasingly violent and erratic, as if he is operating at a single but insuperable remove from reality. He finds himself delivering vicious outbursts at dinner parties and neighbourhood gatherings. He is often unrecognised and misunderstood. And as the strange palsy threatens to overcome him, he rapidly loses his standing in the community.

Behind or around these events loom a number of questions. Is James the man he thinks he is? Are the events he sees real or imagined? What has he done to deserve the contempt and disgust with which his friends and family now meet him?

Tom Lee addresses these questions with great skill and subtlety, and the story he tells casts on the reader a stealthily mesmeric spell. It bewitches you glacially and obliquely, moving from genteel and bracingly perceptive descriptions of suburban life to the imagining of an environment in which time, reality and ethics appear disturbingly out of joint.

Occasionally, Lee's prose can be hackneyed: characters "bite the bullet" and "force the issue". But it is often taught, bright and vivid (children move "with an odd, bustling efficiency, like an insect colony sharing a single, collective intelligence"), and it draws the reader to a denouement that is as coldly brutal as it is psychologically and aesthetically captivating. The Alarming Palsy of James Orr is a resonant, disquieting work that will leave you restless and enraptured, and possessed by the possibility that each of us might one day wake to by greeted by an image not of our imagined self, but by a portrait of the face we deserve.

______________

Read more:

______________

Labour dispute

The insured employee may still file an ILOE claim even if a labour dispute is ongoing post termination, but the insurer may suspend or reject payment, until the courts resolve the dispute, especially if the reason for termination is contested. The outcome of the labour court proceedings can directly affect eligibility.


- Abdullah Ishnaneh, Partner, BSA Law 

Key facilities
  • Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
  • Premier League-standard football pitch
  • 400m Olympic running track
  • NBA-spec basketball court with auditorium
  • 600-seat auditorium
  • Spaces for historical and cultural exploration
  • An elevated football field that doubles as a helipad
  • Specialist robotics and science laboratories
  • AR and VR-enabled learning centres
  • Disruption Lab and Research Centre for developing entrepreneurial skills
Sole survivors
  • Cecelia Crocker was on board Northwest Airlines Flight 255 in 1987 when it crashed in Detroit, killing 154 people, including her parents and brother. The plane had hit a light pole on take off
  • George Lamson Jr, from Minnesota, was on a Galaxy Airlines flight that crashed in Reno in 1985, killing 68 people. His entire seat was launched out of the plane
  • Bahia Bakari, then 12, survived when a Yemenia Airways flight crashed near the Comoros in 2009, killing 152. She was found clinging to wreckage after floating in the ocean for 13 hours.
  • Jim Polehinke was the co-pilot and sole survivor of a 2006 Comair flight that crashed in Lexington, Kentucky, killing 49.
HAJJAN
%3Cp%3EDirector%3A%20Abu%20Bakr%20Shawky%C2%A0%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%3Cbr%3EStarring%3A%20Omar%20Alatawi%2C%20Tulin%20Essam%2C%20Ibrahim%20Al-Hasawi%C2%A0%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%3Cbr%3ERating%3A%204%2F5%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
RESULTS FOR STAGE 4

Stage 4 Dubai to Hatta, 197 km, Road race.

Overall leader Primoz Roglic SLO (Team Jumbo - Visma)

Stage winners: 1. Caleb Ewan AUS (Lotto - Soudal) 2. Matteo Moschetti ITA (Trek - Segafredo) 3. Primoz Roglic SLO (Team Jumbo - Visma)

Voices: How A Great Singer Can Change Your Life
Nick Coleman
Jonathan Cape

MOUNTAINHEAD REVIEW

Starring: Ramy Youssef, Steve Carell, Jason Schwartzman

Director: Jesse Armstrong

Rating: 3.5/5

Pakistan World Cup squad

Sarfraz Ahmed (c), Fakhar Zaman, Imam-ul-Haq, Abid Ali, Babar Azam, Haris Sohail, Shoaib Malik, Mohammad Hafeez(subject to fitness), Imad Wasim, Shadab Khan, Hasan Ali, Faheem Ashraf, Junaid Khan, Shaheen Shah Afridi, Mohammad Hasnain      

Two additions for England ODIs: Mohammad Amir and Asif Ali

The specs: 2018 Volkswagen Teramont

Price, base / as tested Dh137,000 / Dh189,950

Engine 3.6-litre V6

Gearbox Eight-speed automatic

Power 280hp @ 6,200rpm

Torque 360Nm @ 2,750rpm

Fuel economy, combined 11.7L / 100km

Ruwais timeline

1971 Abu Dhabi National Oil Company established

1980 Ruwais Housing Complex built, located 10 kilometres away from industrial plants

1982 120,000 bpd capacity Ruwais refinery complex officially inaugurated by the founder of the UAE Sheikh Zayed

1984 Second phase of Ruwais Housing Complex built. Today the 7,000-unit complex houses some 24,000 people.  

1985 The refinery is expanded with the commissioning of a 27,000 b/d hydro cracker complex

2009 Plans announced to build $1.2 billion fertilizer plant in Ruwais, producing urea

2010 Adnoc awards $10bn contracts for expansion of Ruwais refinery, to double capacity from 415,000 bpd

2014 Ruwais 261-outlet shopping mall opens

2014 Production starts at newly expanded Ruwais refinery, providing jet fuel and diesel and allowing the UAE to be self-sufficient for petrol supplies

2014 Etihad Rail begins transportation of sulphur from Shah and Habshan to Ruwais for export

2017 Aldar Academies to operate Adnoc’s schools including in Ruwais from September. Eight schools operate in total within the housing complex.

2018 Adnoc announces plans to invest $3.1 billion on upgrading its Ruwais refinery 

2018 NMC Healthcare selected to manage operations of Ruwais Hospital

2018 Adnoc announces new downstream strategy at event in Abu Dhabi on May 13

Source: The National

UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
MATCH INFO

Who: UAE v USA
What: first T20 international
When: Friday, 2pm
Where: ICC Academy in Dubai