The Passion of Will Self

In the first short story in Will Self’s first book, The Quantity Theory of Insanity, published in 1991, the narrator’s mother dies from a cancer that “tore through her body”. Cancer is now tearing through Self’s body. He has secondary myelofibrosis, a blood cancer. His new book, called The Quantity Theory of Morality, is a “sequel” to his first, and watches a fictional Will Self die of blood cancer, aged 64. The author is now halfway through that year of his life.