Long-time Chiswick resident Brent Furnas's novel My Forehead (and Other Oddites) made its debut at the Ealing Literary Festival on Acton Green in early September.

The novel, which takes place largely in West London, tells the story of young airline pilot, Henry Flerxck, who finds that his fiancée, Harriet, can't bring herself to actually marry him without her father's permission and, since her father would prefer that she marry her handsome and titled ex¬-fiancé, permission is not forthcoming.

After a spectacular emergency landing puts Henry in the public eye, he learns of an aristocratic title in his own family, a title that could be his subject to a DNA test. That test, however, reveals a family secret so bizarre that Henry finds himself a celebrity, fêted and shunned at the same time.

Brent Furnas was born in New Mexico and grew up in Central America, Britain, Spain, East Africa and a variety of locations in the USA. Later, in attempt to make sense of his childhood, he studied geography at the University of California.

After graduating, he worked as a typesetter, editor and writer for various magazines in Los Angeles. He became a regular contributor to the wildlife conservation magazine ZooLife, and in 1991, while wandering through the Zimbabwean bush in search of a story, he suffered an unpleasant encounter with a mosquito.

Recovering from malaria in Nairobi (one of his many home towns), he became reacquainted with a childhood friend and they later married.

He now lives with his wife and son in Chiswick, where he works as a teacher, editor and writer. Some of his educational material is published by Penguin.

My Forehead and Other Oddities is his first novel.

November 8, 2007