After 9/11 a story quickly circulated about a man who should have been at his desk in the Twin Towers as the plane hit. Instead he was in a shop exchanging the shirt his mother had bought for his birthday. His mother's poor fashion sense saved his life.
Similar stories of lives saved by random chance circulated in 2005 after the Asian Tsunami, the 7/7 bombings, Hurricane Katrina and the Asian Earthquake. It proves that our lives hang on mundane threads, says pink-haired author Mil Millington. "That man is alive because his mother was in a shop thinking, 'Do I get the green or the purple shirt?'" he says in his flat Midlands accent.
It also proves that the theme for Mil's latest novel, Love and Other Near-Death Experiences, could not be more prescient. Is that coincidence? No, says the convinced atheist, he has wanted to tackle the subject for a long time: the attack on the Twin Towers seems to have set off a chain of thought that resulted in the novel. "Even when I was writing my first book back in 2001 I was interested in the idea of randomness," he says. "I am fascinated by the basic questions of why am I here, what is happening and do I have any control over where I am going?"
He then tells me the story of the man and the shirt. We are sitting in the lobby of London's Regent's Palace Hotel off Piccadilly. Backpackers buzz around the reception desk; they seem odd company for a discussion about existential angst caused by a society that has abandoned conventional religion as an explanation of the human condition.
Mil looks across at them as two tourists bump into each other, hug and laugh at the coincidence of their meeting. "When you have life and death stories like the man and the shirt it is very difficult for people to just go, 'That's random chance.' It is instinctive for us to assign meaning to events like that," he observes, blowing out a long stream of smoke.
Though the subject matter is serious, it is discussed with much laughter. Mil has, as readers of his previous bestsellers Things My Girlfriend And I Have Argued About and A Certain Chemistry know, a highly developed sense of the absurd, which finds hilarious expression in Love and Other Near-Death Experiences.
The novel jack-knifes from one scene to another with the manic energy of a fairground ride. But though it leaves you reeling with laughter, its serious points are not lost, especially the main point: enjoy life and stop worrying, because it is the only life you have.
The action centres around the existential breakdown of late-night DJ Rob Garland, caused two months away from his wedding when an accident of timing means he escapes death. He cannot understand that the random chance that saved his life – when he was forced by his girlfriend to return a cheap towel rather than be in a pub doing an interview – has no more profound meaning than that he was lucky.
After pouring his heart out to listeners one night, he discovers he is not the only one with questions after cheating death. But when he teams up with two other survivors to search for meaning in their narrow escapes he finds the search could kill them.
"It's a book about people who should be dead," Mil says matter-of-factly. "The characters all respond to it in different ways, though the most common response is to find God or feel guilty at surviving."
By taking Rob's trivial decision to return the towel, Mil is able to show how we can invest the most mundane acts with monumental meaning given the circumstances. Mil also shows how that can ruin our lives: "Because he realises that what he thought were trivial decisions are not always so, he becomes frozen with indecision."
Rob's indecision is the root of much of the comedy – he is a man on the verge of imploding and sees threats in every dark corner. His increasing paranoia brings to mind some of the great comic creations of the past, from John Cleese's beleaguered headmaster in Clockwork to Alan Partridge's encounter with his obsessive fan.
Was it tempting to tone down the laughs and write a "serious" book about life and death? I ask. "I love comedy so much that I wanted the book to be laugh-out-loud funny," he answers. "Because of the subject matter I didn't want to get that thing that people say all the time, 'It's darkly comic.' That means it is not funny. I wanted it to be funny."
Mil is on a mission when it comes to comedy: he hates cultural commentators' dismissal of it as not worthy of serious recognition. The interview is taking place the day after Ronnie Barker's death, and he points out that the actor has been described in all the obituaries as a great "comic" actor, rather than just a great actor. "Which is exactly my point," he says with emphasis.
He leans forward in his chair, tapping the table with both hands. "I have to rant about comedy. When someone is a gifted mathematician, say, or a serious novelist, they will say they are a genius. But if their work involves comedy then they say he or she is a 'comic' genius, as though they are some kind of idiot savant."
Comic writing is good storytelling, he believes. It is subtler than telling jokes and the punchline rarely matters, he adds. "A trap people fall into is thinking it would be funny, say, to have a character get drunk and wake up in Liverpool with no trousers on. I would say, of course he woke up in Liverpool with no trousers on if he got drunk. What is funny and more interesting is if at every step of the journey to Liverpool he thought he was making the right decision. That is where the potential for humour is."
He laughs and lights another cigarette. Is he working on another book? "Yes, it's called The Man Whose Girlfriend Thought She was God." A wicked grin spreads across his face. "It is not an anti-religious treatise," he insists. "It's funny."
He adds: "It is about someone who has an irrational belief but is completely fixed in that. So what do you do with them?" In Mil's case, you have fun laughing at their absurdities, the absurdities of us all; and appreciate being alive.
Mil Millington's profile and book listing
Download an extract from Love and Other Near-Death Experiences www.thingsmygirlfriendandIhavearguedabout.com
Mil Millington is co-founder of The Weekly www.theweekly.co.uk
Love and Other Near-Death Experiences
Download an extract from Love and Other Near-Death Experiences Things My Girlfriend And I Have Argued About A Certain Chemistry