A sickly child at birth, at the age of eight Dexter Hand was diagnosed with TB. This required a lengthy stay in a sanitorium, which saved his life. But the ravages of the complaint did not go away. They remained to haunt his life. He participated in all the sports and although he had the instincts for the games, he did not have the capacity.He lived normally when he could and adopted excuses when he couldn’t. He worked as a technical author for a good part of his adult life. So elaborate was his world of deception, excusing himself over his lung condition, that a deflection to romantic writing was an obvious recourse. He could be someone else if needs be. The characters he portrays here are all him. The covert world of secret illness, and its unsuspected torments, has its day here too.