A devastating story told with the anarchy, the humour and the enchantment Max Porter’s readers will recognise from Grief is the Thing with Feathers.

There is a village outside London, no different from many others. Everyday lives conjure a tapestry of fabulism and domesticity.

This village belongs to the people who live in it and to the people who lived in it hundreds of years ago. It belongs to England’s mysterious past and its confounding present.

But it also belongs to Dead Papa Toothwort who has woken from his slumber and is listening, and watching.

He is watching Mad Pete the village artist. He is listening to ancient Peggy gossiping at her gate, to families recently moved here and to families dead for generations.

Dead Papa Toothwort hears them all as he searches, intently, for his favourite.

Looking for the boy.

Lanny.