New Egypt is a village somewhere in the south of England. A village that nobody has ever left. Peach, the sadistic chief of police, makes sure of that. Then, one misty morning, a young couple secretly set their baby son Moses afloat on the river, in a basket made of rushes. Years later, Moses is living above a nightclub, mixing with drug-dealers, thieves and topless waitresses. He knows nothing about his past - but it is catching up with him nevertheless, and it threatens to put his life in danger. Terror, magic and farce all have a part to play as the worlds of Peach and Moses slowly converge.
► A novel of startling imagination, mixing claustrophobia and fantasy with sharp reality and observation ◄ Cosmopolitan
► A rites-of-passage novel, a love story, a political satire and a sourly comic thriller ... Gnawing at the edge of Thomson's text... is an unsentimental knowledge of pain which lifts him out of the rank of mere fantasists ... an acgievement ◄ Literary Review
► What makes thgis book different ... is the skill with which he modulates its lighy and dark moods, and the generosity he shows to his characters ◄ Observer
► Brash, cynical and wildly eccentric ... the prose [is] as dazzling as a firework display ... a remarkable first novel ◄ Evening Standard
*
Cover photograph by Ian Jackson
First published in 1987 by Bloomsbury