Spectacular absurdity. A one-legged Irish murderer explores a distorted reflection of his home village, many years after his crime. The deviations from reality grow more pronounced and disturbing (and more hilariously inventive) at every turn. He will learn how the colour of the wind at the moment of his birth determined his life expectancy, why right is a far more tricksy direction than left, and exactly what percentage of the parish have become more than half bicycle (and also why).

The novel is also notable for the copious commentary on (and occasional quotation from) the savant De Selby. He is responsible for such fascinating ideas as the explanation of ‘night’ as an accretion of black air (extremely flammable, as seen for instance when a match is struck); that bereavement, old age, love, sin, death and other “saliencies of existence” are “unnecessary”; that the Earth is not spherical but ‘sausage-shaped’; and so on. As perhaps the only reliable extant source on De Selby’s writings, O’Brien is a great source for those perceptive and penetrating coffee-table discussions.