'Mordant, torrential, incantatory, Bolano-esque, Perec-ian, and just so explosively written that I had to stop and shake the language-shrapnel from my hair and wipe it off my eyeglasses so I could keep reading' Jonathan Lethem'Full of clever postmodern flourishes, self-referential winks and riotous set pieces.It's funny, smart and beautifully written' Alex Preston, The Guardian'I absolutely adored Dead Souls.Reading it felt like overhearing the most exhilarating, funny, mean conversation imaginable--which is to say it made me extremely happy and I dreaded it ending' Megan Nolan, author of Acts of Desperation'I first heard about Solomon Wiese on a bright, blustery day on the South Bank...'Later that evening, at the bar of the Travelodge near Waterloo Bridge, our unnamed narrator will encounter that very same Solomon Wiese. In a conversation that lasts until morning, he will hear Solomon Wiese's story of his spectacular fall from grace. A story about a scandal that has shaken the literary world and an accusation of serial plagiarism. A story about childhood encounters with nothingness and a friend's descent into psychosis; about conspiracies and poetry cults; about a love affair with a woman carrying a signpost and the death of an old poet. A story about a retreat to the East Anglian countryside and plans for a triumphant return to the capital, through the theft of poems, illegal war profits and faked social media accounts - plans in which our unnamed narrator discovers he is obscurely implicated... A story that will take the entire night - and the remainder of the novel - to tell. 'Reading Dead Souls feels like discovering the British Bolaño, and not just for the gleeful dismantling of the cultural ego: the restless, searching sensibility; the precise tuning-in to contradictory voices.I haven't been so excited by a debut novel in a long time' Luke Kennard, author of The Transition'Elegant, ambitious, very serious and very funny' Katharine Kilalea, author of OK, Mr. Field'Sublime, legendary, delightfully unhinged. A rare and brilliant pleasure' Nicolette Polek, author of Imaginary Museums
