Synopses & Reviews
Horace Littlefair, resident of the rural English village of Great Much, has decided to make his way to London, accepting a job at an obscure newspaper owned by his great-uncle on the south side of the Thames. Upon arrival in town, and dressed in his grandfather's walking breeches and three-quarter-length tweed coat, Horace is promptly cheated by a cabdriver and spends his first night sleeping on a park bench. Thus begins Horace's adventures in his new surroundings. Inept at reporting, he rambles through the obstacles of his new life, encountering a group of eccentric characters who become his new family in London, and with whom he has some very unusual adventures while he endeavors to get the scoop behind the campaign to save the urban fox. Sharply funny and clearly drawn, A Stranger in the Earth is a brilliant comic debut from a bright new talent with an acutely observant eye and a warm heart.
Review
"Marcel Theroux already has his own voice and he can pull off that difficult feat, the comic first novel. . . . Switching between farce and some touching observations about the suburbs and city life, Theroux is a natural storyteller."-Publishing News (London)
"A genuine comic debut . . . the humor does not obliterate a graceful comic style."-The Times (London)
"First impressions of this debut novel are matched by fine traditional skills in writing, wit, and invention."-Daily Mail on Sunday (London)
"A witty satire . . . had me roaring with laughter at 2A.M."-Esquire
Review
"A sad and loving testament to human frailty and human hope.-San Francisco Chronicle
"Andrew O'Hagan proves himself an original prose stylist, a lord of the language worthy of a place alongside his cantankerous and talented Scottish contemporaries: James Kelman, Alan Warner, Irvine Welsh...Incantatory."-The Wall Street Journal
"The characters ring so true you'd think they were indeed alive...A dark, engaging novel."-The Denver Post
Synopsis
Twenty-two-year-old Horace Littlefair travels from the village of Great Much to the big city-London town-if not to make it rich, then at least to make a living working for his great uncle at the local newspaper. Unprepared, underpaid, and overdressed, he is plunged instead into the discombobulating world of love, racism, rabies, blackmail, political intrigue . . . and Scrabble. Horace is out of step with the rest of the world, threatened by impending disaster wherever he turns. But he is helped along by several unlikely and unusual friendships. And so Horace stumbles to adapt, to love, to produce good copy, and to get the scoop behind Barnaby Colefax's campaign to save the urban fox. Marvelous storytelling from a gifted young writer.
About the Author
Marcel Theroux was born in Kampala, Uganda, in 1968. He studied English at Cambridge and international relations at Yale. He worked in television news in Boston and New York, and now lives in London.