A blackly comic, surreal, and exquisitely rendered work--and an assured debut

Poor Eustace is not very well. Convalescing in bed, his world is confined to the four walls of his grand and gloomy room. His days are spent in wild imaginings, punctuated by the occasional visit from his mother and a legion of aunties, who fuss and smother Eustace. But then his wicked uncle arrives in a cloud of pipe smoke, accompanied by a swelling cast of prostitutes, hoodlums, drunkards, and assorted hangers-on. Suddenly Eustace finds himself transformed from invalid to the star of a glittering and...