Alan Burns was an important voice in a group of experimental writers who came to the fore in Great Britain in the post-World War II era. He worked in multiple genres—essays, interviews, drama, non-fiction, and short fiction—however, his reputation is based primarily on his eight novels, the first four of which are collected in this volume. In Buster, Burns recounts the childhood and maturation of Dan Graveson, a middle-class boy who experiences the death of his mother and older brother at a young age and who wanders from one undertaking and profession to another....