A devastating story told with the anarchy, the humour and the enchantment Max Porter's readers will recognise from Grief Is the Thing with Feathers.
There is a village outside London, no different from many others. Everyday lives conjure a tapestry of fabulism and domesticity.
This village belongs to the people who live in it and to the people who lived in it hundreds of years ago. It belongs to England's mysterious past and its confounding present.
But it also belongs to Dead Papa Toothwort who has woken from his slumber and is listening, and watching.
He is watching Mad Pete the village artist. He is listening to ancient Peggy gossiping at her gate, to families recently moved here and to families dead for generations.
Dead Papa Toothwort hears them all as he searches, intently, for his favourite.
Looking for the boy.
Lanny.
Author bio:
Max Porter's first novel, Grief Is the Thing with Feathers, won the Sunday Times/Peters, Fraser + Dunlop Young Writer of the Year, the International Dylan Thomas Prize, the Europese Literatuurprijs and the BAMB Readers' Award, and was shortlisted for the Guardian First Book Award and the Goldsmiths Prize. It has been translated into twenty-seven languages. Max lives in Bath with his family.
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