This Census-Taker
25 February 2016Imprint: Macmillan Digital Audio
Synopsis
In a remote house on a hilltop, a lonely boy witnesses a traumatic event. He tries - and fails - to flee. Left alone with his increasingly deranged parent, he dreams of safety, of joining the other children in the town below, of escape.
When at last a stranger knocks at his door, the boy senses that his days of isolation...
Details
25 February 2016242 minutes
9781509828548Imprint: Macmillan Digital Audio
Reviews
A short, dark fairytale, Kafka rewritten by David Mitchell, and may well be the best thing you'll read all year.Alex Preston, 'Fiction highlights for 2016', Guardian
Miéville's solid, world-creating imagination is shown to powerful effect in this novella . . . a vague and misty (and, incidentally, superb) tale about the need to get things absolutely straight.Sunday Times
Harrowing beauty and existential disorientation . . . it's a Miéville book, after all. As I write this I can very clearly picture two scenes from this story about a boy who witnesses a killing in his isolated rural home. Not a word is said aloud in either scene, but the interpretative stakes in both are high enough to give you a nosebleed.Helen Oyeyemi, The Week
Miéville's brain-twisting, inventive use of language pins the indefinable to the page, reading this slim book feels like gasping a lungful of air, holding it throughout the letting it out slowly, wondering what just happened. A challenging, thought-provoking read.Metro
