Man with a Seagull on His Head

Linked by an unlikely accident, four strangers characters grapple with loneliness, memory, and the mysteries of art.

Ray Eccles is a man who dislikes unpredictability and the messiness of social interaction, to such extent that his co-workers' habit of gathering around the Xerox machine it's his job to run makes even that regular task unbearable. When a misunderstanding leads to unexpected time off from work, Ray takes a day trip to nearby East Beach on what happens to be his fortieth birthday. As he gazes at the sea, a distant woman turns to face him--and a seagull falls from the sky, knocking him unconscious. He awakens compelled to paint her image, using whatever materials come to hand: jam, ketchup, even the walls of his home.

Enter George and Grace Zoob, collectors of Outsider Art, whose endorsement rockets Ray to fame in the art world and beyond. Soon even small-town newspapers are covering his work--which is how Jennifer, the woman on the beach, discovers she's the sole subject of the paintings that have set the world on fire, leading her to wonder if a man she's never met is the only person who has ever really seen her.

Lyrical, elegant and quietly profound, Harriet Paige's Man With a Seagull on His Head captures the small, shared moments where our lives overlap, making artistry out of the everyday.