In The Book of Idiots, tipsy, sick Wil Daniel tells the narrator, Dean, a tale that may be a ghost story or a romance, a farce or a tragedy. Meanwhile we get glimpses of Dean's own half-lived life, and those of friends and colleagues. These threads develop into a dark, offbeat and merciless examination of maleness and mortality.

Can Clive regain the triumphs he achieved at the age of nine? Will Jeff stop his swimming trunks from dissolving?

Outstanding in its use of dialogue to reveal character, this superbly written novel develops into a meditation on kinds of suffering that are no less acute for being routine.

"Meredith's first novel for 14 years is a darkly comic triumph full of uncomfortable truths."
Shortlist

"'You will sail through this hilarious black comedy at one sitting…. It is a literary masterpiece… a thriller in which we guess who survives rather than who will die next."
Gwen Davies, Western Mail

"This is a fine novel… hard to put down and an adventure in meaning."
Jeremy Hooker

Christopher Meredith is the author of the award-winning Shifts. The Book of Idiots is his fourth novel.