Volume 210 pages
About the book
Experience a shipwrecked sailor's psychic disintegration into 'a naked madman on a rock' by the radical Nobel Laureate and author of
Lord of the Flies.
An hour on this rock is a lifetime.
Glistening limpets. The claws of a lobster. Wild tangles of seaweed. Slowly, his eyes open. Everywhere, there is sea. Only this jagged peak interrupts the vast expanse of the Atlantic: a tooth in a gaping jaw. But he will survive. Rainwater can be drunk; anemones eaten. He dries his oilskin beneath the screaming gulls, and discovers his papers: Christopher Hadley Martin, TY. Lieut., R.N.V.R. Weathering lightning strikes of memory, he must now reconstruct his fate – piece by terrible piece. 'Devastating … Violently real … The unique kind of novel that compels you to reread it.' Marlon James
'Wizardry of the first order.' Observer
'Terrifying . Magnificently original.' Sylvia Plath 'An amazing tour de force … A blow-by-blow struggle for survival.' Stephen Spender 'Immense … To read it is to undergo a shattering and memorable experience.' Kingsley Amis 'A master fabulist … An iconoclast.' John Fowles