Travel to the revolutionary closing years of 18th century England.
Meet Jack Cockshutt, arsonist by trade, returning to rescue his victims and profit from their relief, finding the woman who just might save him. Meet the beauty who castigates her customers with passages from Paine’s Rights of Man; the boy who raises the tricolour on the White Tower; the famous comic actor with his self-destructive craving for eel pies; and the labourer contracted to spend seven years locked up beneath a dilettante’s country house. Meet Lappish women. Glimpse the picnic party of the Ottoman ambassador.
A stunning new voice emerges with these strange and gem-like stories.
‘This is the best kind of historical fiction: the past is freshly and energetically reimagined in Alix Nathan’s intricate and interweaving tales. She cuts against cliché, against the received version, against cosiness. She leaves her reader restless, curious, wanting more. She is an original, with a virtuoso touch.’ Hilary Mantel'Knotty and intricate little pieces that linger long after reading…' Adrian Masters, Wales Arts Review'From free indirect discourse to wonderful imagery, Nathan lends her stories and creations a refreshing immediacy all too often lacking in historical works... Nathan must be applauded on such a confident, learned and engaging debut collection...' New Welsh Review
Alix Nathan was born in London and educated there and at York University where she read English and Music. She now lives in the Welsh Marches where she owns some ancient woodland. She has published many short stories and her novel Sarah Battle will come out with Parthian in 2014. She has recently completed another novel, Into the Depths.