Da Vinci's Cuckoos

by Helen Nathaniel-Fulton
Something Like Chalk Press, 2017
32 pages, £3.99

This series of 5 autobiographical short stories tells of times when individuals appear unbidden in your life, attaching themselves firmly to you or your group of friends. Their motives are mixed. They stay a while, often disappear as suddenly as they come, but are not forgotten. They are ripples still spreading on the surface of a pool or whispers echoing in a cave. Helen visualised one of the interlopers as a wacky Mona Lisa, which gave the idea for each of the five to be represented by a Da Vinci painting or drawing. As the stories developed, words and images became entwined and mutually influential so that they now belong together: da Vinci's cuckoos.