Lazlo Strangolov's Feather and Bone

‘Ghost writing from the underground’, proclaims the cover of this highly original and – depending on your sense of humour – very entertaining book. Taken in conjunction with Matt Whyman’s foreword, the cover phrase prepares us for the various kinds of skulduggery, literary and otherwise, which we encounter as we become involved in the weirdness of everyday (and every-night) activities in the dark woods of Transylvania. Here, a former chicken processing plant known as the Squawk Box and presided over by a Mister Petri and his two butcher sons would seem now to be the centre of an altogether more gruesome variety of processing. Discovering precisely what form this takes is primarily the task of 11-year-old Kamil, whose inventor father has earlier mysteriously disappeared and whose mother, one of the novel’s most memorable creations, lives ‘wrapped in memories’ in a state of melancholic distress. The small community of which Kamil and his mother are members is populated by a diverting cast of the good and the grotesque, greatest of all (in more senses than one) being the formidable Cosmina, endowed with a particular fondness for liver paté (among much else) and ultimately to be grateful for the timely application of – don’t ask! – a jar of lard. Transylvania’s melange of sights, sounds and (especially) smells is conveyed with a humour which is unfadingly black and in a tone where tongue is permanently in cheek. Hilarious – if you like that sort of thing.