Name JS Raynor | Role Novelist | |
Books A Comfortable Death, Who Wants to be British, A Chronicle of Intimac | ||
John Stephen Raynor (born 11 August 1944 in Oldham, Lancashire) is a British novelist who resides in Sale, Greater Manchester, England. He was educated at Hathershaw Technical High School, Oldham, and worked as an architectural technician and in computing. Suffering from retinitis pigmentosa, he has been registered blind for over 30 years. He publishes under the name JS Raynor.
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Career
Raynor made his debut in 2005 with A Comfortable Death, a novel based in part on the childhood experiences of his wife who was born in the Philippines. This was followed by The Gaudi Facade, his second novel in 2009. In 2011 A Chronicle of Intimacies was published. This is an autobiographical story of a life-dislocating affair.
Raynor has also published short stories under the pen-name Christopher Carr, two of which have been broadcast on BBC Radio Manchester
A Comfortable Death (2005)
In the land of Ferdinand Marcos you quickly learn to be tough". These are the first words on the back cover of A Comfortable Death, a novel inspired by real life in the Philippines during the Marcos' regime.
John Raynor, the author of the book, fell in love with the country and particularly with one of its inhabitants, who is now his wife. He then started collecting experiences to tell the story of a young girl becoming a woman, through many vicissitudes.
Using a simple prose style, Raynor tells the story of Lisa Tiguelo, whose destiny seems to have been decided from her birth. A blessed girl, whose beauty affects all who look at her. In the course of the novel, she is in turn a militant, a housekeeper, and a nurse. She never forgets the values of honesty and love which she has been taught as a child. When she is placed under the compulsion of the dying wishes of her adored grandfather, she finds that her religious faith comes into conflict with the promises she has made.
A comfortable death is a proud and bright picture of the Philippines of the last century, made credible not only by research, but also by the author's personal experiences.