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A masterpiece … complex and fascinating and memorable’ Colm Toibin ‘A beautiful writer and an unforgettable book’ Salman Rushdie’Guyanese authors are a radiant constellation, and Roy Heath stands rightfully among them. His unique style stands out from others of his time, and ours’ Lemn Sissay’For me life hasn’t got dreams, success and all that damn nonsense.

Life is full of shadows: some of them soft and others conceal a hammer.’Galton Flood is a lonely man, restless and ill at ease with his family. He leaves his home in Guyana’s capital, Georgetown, for a remote township, and the first of a string of precarious jobs. Meeting Gemma, his landlord’s daughter, appears to offer a first chance of meaningful connection – maybe even happiness.

But there is a darkness inside Galton, and soon jealousy and paranoia lead him to fatally, violently unravel. With this haunting portrait of a mind undone, celebrated Guyanese writer Roy Heath evocatively recreates the country of his youth: its rivers, townships and tenement yards, and the tensions shimmering below the surface of a community. ‘Enthralling …