My Name Is Nathan Lucius

- My name is Nathan Lucius. I sleep with the light on.
- I buy old photographs of people I don't know. I give them names and arrange them into a family tree on my wall. This means I can have a new family whenever I want.
- I'm happiest when each day is exactly like the one before.
- I like to run. I hate the beach.
- When Mrs. du Toit next door masturbates I can hear her coming behind my wall of photographs. I've never seen her husband. Maybe that's why she does it all the time. Sometimes the sound inspires me to the same. I think of her even though she is over forty.
- I work at a daily newspaper where I sell advertising space. It's a job.
- I like to drink. I like to watch TV.
- I had a girlfriend a while ago. One day I told her that I'd rather wank than have sex with her, so she left.
- My name is Nathan Lucius. I am thirty-one years old.
- I live in a flat in Pansyshell Park. I have no pets.

Often the news in the morning edition doesn't get much past page twelve. After that it's business and sport. Sometimes you'll find that page twelve is already in the business supplement. There are seven billion people on the planet. It worries me that the journos can only find enough stories to fill twelve pages. What a boring species we must be.
There are more ads than stories anyway. It's like the journos are there only to fill the gaps between the commercial stuff. Maybe it's enough to put them off writing past page twelve, the knowledge that you're just writing around ads for cars or margarine. It must be disheartening. In the three years I've been here it's become harder and harder to sell ad space even though the spaces have got smaller. You measure the spaces in centimetres up and by columns across. I've always struggled to understand that.
It's like measuring something in so many cubits high by so many wombats wide. My boss Sonia blames the bad sales on the internet. She blames most things on the internet. Child porn, global warming, the wrong election

Mark Winkler was born in Johannesburg, South Africa, in 1966. He grew up in what is now Mpumalanga and graduated from Rhodes University, Grahamstown, with a Bachelor of Journalism in 1990. My Name Is Nathan Lucius, his second novel, was longlisted for the 2016 Sunday Times Fiction Prize, and his short story "When I Came Home" was shortlisted for the 2016 Commonwealth Writer's Prize, one of 26 stories to be selected out of almost 4,000 submissions from 47 countries. Winkler lives in Cape Town with his wife and their two daughters. Find him online at @giantblackdog, themarkwinkler.blogspot.com and facebook.com/themarkwinklerauthor.

Praise for My Name Is Nathan Lucius

"Noir at its darkest, cunningly executed."
-Newsweek

"Without question one of the year's most ambitious, suspenseful, tightly controlled and expertly executed novels . . . Lucius is a Cape Town Raskolnikov . . . In a dizzyingly dazzling complication of before and after, Winkler implicates the reader as judge, jury and executioner in a wider set of criminal entanglements, both forging intense sympathy for the troubled Lucius, and forcing the reader to consider whether this disaffected man is capable of much greater, more disturbing acts of violence . . . Winkler's lean, lithe sentences ripple with allusive intensity and gritty detail."
-LitNet, South Africa

"A meticulously crafted thriller-cum-trauma novel that explores broader themes of morality, responsibility, society and the human psyche . . . When the key revelations unfold, they are genuinely shocking . . . Winkler's novel is satisfying clever, his character and plot pithy, elusive, sharp and captivating."
-Aerodrome, South Africa

"It is with steady confidence that Winkler builds out his protagonist's psyche in this exploration of memory, death, friendship, euthanasia, and psychological trauma."
-Mystery Scene Magazine

"The twists and turns that Winkler provides make the novel addicting from its unusual beginning to its final sentence, which is a revelation all by itself. Be prepared."
-The Book Reporter

"Winkler delivers a superb noir thriller. Readers of Chuck Palahniuk and Irvine Welsh will savor the psychological twists and turns, while aficionados of Dennis Lehane and Thomas Harris will enjoy Winkler's exploration of the protagonist's morality and responsibility."
-Library Journal, Starred Review

"Daring . . . If you do pick it up, clear the schedule, because you'll need to finish it before you'll be able to do anything else."
-Kingdom Books

"My Name Is Nathan Lucius is bleak, ambitious, and thought provoking, and it will find fans among