The Alteration

(Paperback)

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Of all the choristers at the Cathedral Basilica of St George, he is the angel - the one whose voice could only have been made in heaven. In every other respect Hubert is utterly ordinary: a nice, rather timid ten-year-old boy. The year is 1976, but by bold Amisian sleight-of-hand, the England of The Alteration has become a disconcerting, quasi-medieval land in the Age of Faith. And here a wickedly brilliant Swiftian satire takes shape. It's modest proposal Well, it stands to reason that Hubert's glorious voice must be preserved at all costs. So castration is clearly the only answer-

Reviews

Kingsley Amis's coruscating tour de force... * The Economist *
Certain of his place up alongside P.G. Wodehouse, Evelyn Waugh and Anthony Powell among the English comic masters of the twentieth century. * Guardian *
The disorientating world of The Alteration is the same but different, familiar yet strange -- Laura Keynes * Tablet *

Author Bio

Kingsley Amis was born in south London in 1922 and was educated at the City of London School and St John's College, Oxford. After the publication of Lucky Jim in 1954, Kingsley Amis wrote over twenty novels, including The Alteration, winner of the John W. Campbell Memorial Award, The Old Devils, winner of the Booker Prize in 1986, and The Biographer's Moustache, which was to be his last book. He also wrote on politics, education, language, films, television, restaurants and drink. Kingsley Amis was awarded the CBE in 1981 and received a knighthood in 1990. He died in October 1995.