Communion Town
The Man Booker longlisted Communion Town reveals the shadows and sinister inhabitants of a city that never appears the same way twice.
On crowded streets, in the town squares and half-empty tower blocks, the lonely and lost try to make a connection. A weary gumshoe pounds the reeking sidewalks, seeking someone he knows he will never find. Violence loiters in blind alleys, eager to embrace the unsuspecting and the reckless. Lovers are doomed to follow treacherous paths that were laid long before they first met.
This city is no ordinary place. Here, the underworld has surfaced; dreams melt into reality and memories are imagined before they are lived. Ghosts and monsters, refugees and travellers – the voices of Communion Town clamour to tell the stories of the city, stories that must be heard to be believed.
Sam Thompson was born in 1978. He teaches English at St Anne's College, Oxford, and he writes for the Times Literary Supplement, the London Review of Books and the Guardian. He lives in Oxford with his wife and son.