Caret

Joyous.Observer
Tremendously entertaining.Irish Times
Truly original.The Times


** A Times and Guardian Book of the Year **

We make lazy assumptions about the centre of things and its location. Whos to say that the centre of things isnt in a corner, way over there?

Nobody can be a person twenty-fours hours a day - it just cant be done. At night the sets dissolve and the performance falls away. Were off the books.

Thats John Cromer talking, in this fresh instalment of his lifelong saga. For John, embarking on a new stage of life in 1970s Cambridge, charm and wit arent just assets, they are survival skills. It may be a case of John against the world. If so, dont be in too much of a hurry to bet on the world.

Conjuring a remarkable voice and mind, Caret is a feast of a novel, served on a succession of small plates, each portion providing an adults daily intake of literary nourishment. Reading it - like any encounter with John Cromer -- is guaranteed to help you work, rest and play.

Thank god for John Cromer and his creator Adam Mars-Jones, one of the funniest, most self-aware characters in English fiction, whose minute observations on everything from constipation to lust are a source of unexpected delight. Linda Grant