Exhilarating and wildly original debut novel set in the Middle Ages exploring mental illness, intolerance and outsiders. For readers of GLORIOUS EXPLOITS by Ferdia Lennon, THE PRETENDER by Jo Harkin, and PIRANESI by Susanna Clarke.
'Father Alberto and the Flying Girl is a story as strange as it is universal, as dark as it is joyous, as hilarious as it is heartfelt- it's a truly special book' CHRISTOPHER WAKLING, author of What I Did
'Profound and strange and utterly original. A book about madness and miracles, faith and pain, human frailty and human kindness - you have to read it to believe it' RACHEL SEIFFERT, author of The Dark Room
In a backwater parish somewhere in medieval Europe, new priest Alberto finds himself protecting those deemed insane. Yet Alberto must also contend with the vicious Abbess - and the terrifying Inferrant Brethren, with whom he has history . . .
Under the reign of the Abbess, the Abbey of Saint Particular imprisons the mad - and therefore godless. Only once each year are the inmates set free for a day, on the drunken Feast of the Holy Fool. Idealistic Alberto is given the thankless task of returning them to the dungeons once the day is over, but soon starts to see that he could help the 'fools' and even learn from them.
There is just one who escapes his grasp- the Flying Girl, a mysterious child who leaps from tree to tree, refusing to speak sense or stay on the ground.
As Alberto grows braver in his defiance of the Abbess, everything comes to a head when the Inferral are called. A terrifying brotherhood of religious inquisition and torture, they are come to rid the parish of evil. The Flying Girl must be caught once and for all - and Alberto's unorthodox kindnesses put him more and more at risk . . .
Bold, vivid and blackly funny, Father Alberto and the Flying Girl is a fiercely imaginative story about kindness, society and so-called madness; about getting things wrong - and hope.
