'It is an elegantly rollicking folderol, a fine daft fable, a great American cartoon, and it has to be read for the sheer knockout quality of the writing, the style, the wit, the farce, the acuity, the brilliant mischievous social and moral apercus, all the clever, funny, tangential stuff...Read it, in short, for Paul Micou; he is the only thing that really matters, and he is, thank God, everywhere, all over it, all of the time.' - Alan Coren, Spectator
'It's an absolutely riveting story. Strange and funny.' - Company
Matthew 'Top' Richmond - conqueror of Everest, scion of an old Gawpassatan family - is in most other respects a failure. Summoned back top the wealthy seaside town of his birth after an absence of several years, he is disturbed to find his old stamping ground given over entirely to the Word, a crass and simplistic modern religion founded by his Uncle Ian. Matthew's knowledge of the Word is foggy at best, but he soon remembers that the date of his uncle's death, supposedly preordained by God, is only days away. A deathbed has been prepared, and devotees around the world anxiously await the Great Man's demise: an heir is said to be in the offing. Rumor has it that the identity of the heir will be announced in The Last Word, Uncle Ian's testament.
Portentous signs abound: Little girls from Gawpassat - the 'food solders of the Word' - are stationed here and there, posing in period costume; the clientele of Trainer's Bar are unusually solicitous when Matthew makes his entrance; even Matthew's eldest sister, Melissa, seems to be mesmerized by a religion no one in the family had ever before taken seriously. Through Matthew's nostalgic reminiscences of his home town, and his reaction to the bizarre events that greet his return, Paul Micou's deftly controlled narrative reveals deeper and deeper layers of mystery, until a central dilemma is posed: how far will Matthew go to help fulfil the destiny of the Word?
'The result is an intriguing satire, elegantly and wittily narrated.' - Anthony Gardner, Weekend Telegraph
'Micou's light, insouciant touch and his confident humour hark back to an earlier storytelling age, but his theme and characters' chilling cynicism could only be contemporary' - The Guardian
Genre: Literary Fiction
'It's an absolutely riveting story. Strange and funny.' - Company
Matthew 'Top' Richmond - conqueror of Everest, scion of an old Gawpassatan family - is in most other respects a failure. Summoned back top the wealthy seaside town of his birth after an absence of several years, he is disturbed to find his old stamping ground given over entirely to the Word, a crass and simplistic modern religion founded by his Uncle Ian. Matthew's knowledge of the Word is foggy at best, but he soon remembers that the date of his uncle's death, supposedly preordained by God, is only days away. A deathbed has been prepared, and devotees around the world anxiously await the Great Man's demise: an heir is said to be in the offing. Rumor has it that the identity of the heir will be announced in The Last Word, Uncle Ian's testament.
Portentous signs abound: Little girls from Gawpassat - the 'food solders of the Word' - are stationed here and there, posing in period costume; the clientele of Trainer's Bar are unusually solicitous when Matthew makes his entrance; even Matthew's eldest sister, Melissa, seems to be mesmerized by a religion no one in the family had ever before taken seriously. Through Matthew's nostalgic reminiscences of his home town, and his reaction to the bizarre events that greet his return, Paul Micou's deftly controlled narrative reveals deeper and deeper layers of mystery, until a central dilemma is posed: how far will Matthew go to help fulfil the destiny of the Word?
'The result is an intriguing satire, elegantly and wittily narrated.' - Anthony Gardner, Weekend Telegraph
'Micou's light, insouciant touch and his confident humour hark back to an earlier storytelling age, but his theme and characters' chilling cynicism could only be contemporary' - The Guardian
Genre: Literary Fiction
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