Following an unexplained event known as the blackout, a group of young travellers emerges into a world where everything has shifted.

They move between islands, uncertain of their past and largely ignorant of their purpose, encountering communities that appear to have been expecting them. Among the travellers is Reger Bede, who reluctantly assumes responsibility for recording their experiences, becoming both participant and chronicler of a journey whose larger significance remains elusive.

Haydn Middleton's The Actual Whole of Music is a strange, speculative novel concerned with memory, personal agency, love and the difficulty of making a coherent account of one's own existence. Its episodic structure follows relationships, departures and unexpected encounters across decades, while recurring images of music, light and circular movement suggest patterns that its narrator cannot entirely decipher. Rather than explain the peculiar world it constructs, Middleton allows uncertainty to become part of the reading experience, asking how much of a life can ever be understood by the person living it.

Edition/Condition: Propolis, 2021. Paperback. Very good condition, with minor signs of handling and light surface wear to the covers.