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by Duncan Lyon (Author)
Sand Paper Stone is the story of a British man from Liverpool living in London where he works in a decent job, with good friends from different backgrounds, yet as a muslim convert and with a landmark moment in his life approaching he finds himself compelled to embark on his pilgrimage to Mecca. Despite encountering obstacles at the consulate in London and also on arrival at Jeddah he is taken in as a 'wayfarer' by a large extended family who assist in instructing him in the rituals and requirements of attendance at Islam's holiest shrine and watch on at his astonishment at the scenes that they witness together. However, just at the moment when he begins to come close to realising the spiritual ambitions of his journey, the practicalities of life invade the peace in the form of what seems petty officialdom and he finds himself launched into a bureaucratic maze, at first trapped in baffling meetings with lofty government ministers and lethargic administrators before finally running alone in the night through an empty terminal onto a runway looking for a plane to Geneva.
