Pagan and Her Parents

A powerful novel about a gay mans struggle to adopt the daughter of his late best friend

UnputdownableThe Times

Arditti writes exactly like DickensScotland on Sunday

I honestly couldnt put the book down Literary Review

Candida Mulliner and Leo Young have been the closest of friends since university, living together but loving separately. When Candida dies after a long illness, she leaves her five year old daughter, Pagan, in Leos care.

Candidas adoptive parents are horrified; they refuse to accept that a single man is a suitable person to bring up a child and challenge Leos guardianship in the courts. The ensuing hearings are complicated by tabloid exposure of Leos homosexuality, which threatens not only his position with Pagan but also his job as a television chat-show host.

As Leo fights for his and Pagans rights in a society that continues to regard gay men as a threat to children, he finds himself isolated, vilified and, ultimately, arrested. Meanwhile, he endeavours to discover the truth about Candida, the cause of her estrangement from her adoptive parents, the identity of her natural mother and the reason for her refusal to name Pagans father.