A sequence of loosely linked stories set in an invented land that feels both pre-modern and eerily contemporary. 

Crace’s debut novel doesn’t quite behave like a debut. Each section introduces a different corner of this world, building not a plot but a thrum: language shifts, economies emerge, bodies are regulated, belief adapts.

At all times a fable, anthropology, and political allegory, without settling into any of them. If you love prose cool, deliberate, observational—you'll see Crace working out the terrain he’ll later refine. This spare prose, estranged settings, and an interest in how civilisation organises itself, often badly, is very bewitching to the right reader.

Minerva paperback edition, 1995 (first Minerva printing; originally published 1986). Clean, tight copy with light edgewear and minor rubbing to covers; pages lightly toned.