Come In and Shut the Door by Chris Petit
When Parker loses his faith and quits studying for the priesthood, he finds himself back in London, looking for employment.
He accepts an offer to work as amanuensis to the sinister Robinson, who earns a living as a collector of dubious historical objects. Parker’s duties involve meeting those who have an interest in purchasing the kinds of artefacts in which Robinson specialises. As he becomes immersed in a world of secret histories, Parker discovers things that will lead him into the darkest corners of 20th-century history and that great fault line of civilisation, institutional corruption, of which he is a victim.
With a cast of corrupt police officers, property speculators, Russian Mafiosi, abusive Roman Catholic priests, Second World War bomber pilots, Eva Braun, Martin Bormann and Adolf Hitler, Come in and Shut the Door is a bold, brave and scatological masterpiece by one of our best and most original writers.
When Parker loses his faith and quits studying for the priesthood, he finds himself back in London, looking for employment.
He accepts an offer to work as amanuensis to the sinister Robinson, who earns a living as a collector of dubious historical objects. Parker’s duties involve meeting those who have an interest in purchasing the kinds of artefacts in which Robinson specialises. As he becomes immersed in a world of secret histories, Parker discovers things that will lead him into the darkest corners of 20th-century history and that great fault line of civilisation, institutional corruption, of which he is a victim.
With a cast of corrupt police officers, property speculators, Russian Mafiosi, abusive Roman Catholic priests, Second World War bomber pilots, Eva Braun, Martin Bormann and Adolf Hitler, Come in and Shut the Door is a bold, brave and scatological masterpiece by one of our best and most original writers.
When Parker loses his faith and quits studying for the priesthood, he finds himself back in London, looking for employment.
He accepts an offer to work as amanuensis to the sinister Robinson, who earns a living as a collector of dubious historical objects. Parker’s duties involve meeting those who have an interest in purchasing the kinds of artefacts in which Robinson specialises. As he becomes immersed in a world of secret histories, Parker discovers things that will lead him into the darkest corners of 20th-century history and that great fault line of civilisation, institutional corruption, of which he is a victim.
With a cast of corrupt police officers, property speculators, Russian Mafiosi, abusive Roman Catholic priests, Second World War bomber pilots, Eva Braun, Martin Bormann and Adolf Hitler, Come in and Shut the Door is a bold, brave and scatological masterpiece by one of our best and most original writers.
