Synopsis
In a remote house on a hilltop, a lonely boy witnesses a traumatic event. He tries - and fails - to flee. Left alone with his increasingly deranged parent, he dreams of safety, of joining the other children in the town below, of escape.
When at last a stranger knocks at his door, the boy senses that his days of isolation...
Details
23 February 2017160 pages
9781509812134Imprint: Picador
Reviews
A short, dark fairytale, Kafka rewritten by David Mitchell, and may well be the best thing you'll read all year.Alex Preston, 'Fiction highlights for 2016', Guardian
Miéville's solid, world-creating imagination is shown to powerful effect in this novella . . . Superb.Sunday Times
Harrowing beauty and existential disorientation . . . it's a Miéville book, after all . . . The interpretative stakes are high enough to give you a nosebleed.Helen Oyeyemi, The Week
Miéville's brain-twisting, inventive use of language pins the indefinable to the page, reading this slim book feels like gasping a lungful of air, holding it throughout the letting it out slowly, wondering what just happened. A challenging, thought-provoking read.Metro
