Product Description

This is a dark comedy, written at the Devil's dictation. Welcome to London! Not quite the London we know. The King of England has converted to Roman Catholicism, along with his sons, and has abdicated in favour of his brother, now known as Andy One. Sickened by years of corrupt and incompetent presidents, the United States has petitioned Andy One to resume sovereignty over America. In England, the government of Christian Coalition Socialists has been ousted in a coup d'etat. The survivors have gone underground, led by High John the Conqueror, chief of the Flagellants, a squad of paramilitary sadomasochists. To escape arrest and execution, High John (real name Organ McWhinny) fakes his own death and disappears, so successfully that his son Lingus, a boy in his mid-teens, believes him to be dead. Motherless and fatherless, Lingus takes to the streets.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1215222 in Books
• Published on: 2007-05-03
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 320 pages

Nicholas Royle, Independent on Sunday
'Younger writes with great vigour and playfulness’

Waterstones Books Quarterly
‘Bizarre, macabre, devilishly satirical and, above all, a beautifully written debut novel.’

The Guardian
‘A deeply English dystopia…Each of Lingus’s perceptions is lovingly worked, and so is each minor character’s speaking voice’

Customer Reviews

Like A Novel Gone Wrong, Only Right
Utterly beyond words, comprehension and any kind of paraphrasis, admittedly rendering this review somewhat futile, yet still, pressing on, I will conclude by saying, my tiddlywinks, that High John and his band of fiddling Milton loving flagellant anarchists provides many, well several, hours of the finest literary entertainment you are ever likely to find this side of Charles Dickens on the one hand, that side of Thomas Pynchon on the other, thus rendering it a book of the most unexpected and estimable quality, a fullsome breath of fresh hallucenogenic air in the soapy quagmire of unoriginality that is the hallmark of virtually every given human endeavour.

absolutely terrible
The worst book i have read in the last 12 months.The characters are awful,the plot is inconceivable.Totally annoying flitting between American
and English.Pretentious piffle written by a drug-addled hippy.This book is supposed to be dark comedy.It is about as funny as a dose of piles.
Rubbish!1 star is too high.