Dry Bones
  • Published: 22 November 2018
  • ISBN: 9781448130009
  • Imprint: Vintage Digital
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 368

Dry Bones

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The definitive novel about celebrity grave-robbing: completely original, very black, and very funny.

Jay Mason is experiencing a crisis of faith.

Disillusioned with his calling as a Deacon in the Anglican Church of Geneva, and estranged from his pregnant girlfriend, he's about to fall into the murky world of celebrity grave-robbing. His church has been bought by the shadowy antiquities dealer Joseph Moholy, who arrives to claim its most interesting asset: the toe bone of Thomas Becket. Moholy has a large collection of dubiously acquired relics and is keen to add to his collection. Jay, he decides, is the man to assist him. Jay finds that grave-robbing can be both lucrative and thrilling, however morally troubling for a man of God, and in Switzerland's cemeteries he finds a rich cast to work on: James Joyce, Richard Burton, John Calvin and Charlie Chaplin all receive his midnight attentions. But Moholy is a ruthless man whose ambitions are perilously high, and as Jay assists him in his search for the holy grail of relics, he puts himself and his loved ones in serious danger.
  • Published: 22 November 2018
  • ISBN: 9781448130009
  • Imprint: Vintage Digital
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 368
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About the author

Richard Beard

Richard Beard is the author of Acts of the Assassins which was shortlisted for the Goldsmiths Prize and most recently, The Day That Went Missing. In the twenty years since his first book he has published critically acclaimed novels and narrative non-fiction, including Becoming Drusilla, the story of how a friendship between two men was changed by a gender transition. He was formerly director of the National Academy of Writing in London, and is now a visiting professor at the University of Tokyo and has a Creative Writing Fellowship at the University of East Anglia. He is an optimistic opening batsman for the Authors Cricket Club.

Also by Richard Beard

Sad Little Men
How to Beat the Australians
The Day That Went Missing
Acts of the Assassins
Lazarus Is Dead
Becoming Drusilla
Damascus
See all

Praise for Dry Bones

Excellent-Beard is a hugely playful novelist-Dry Bones is scabrous and profane, but also very human in a good way, and probably a little bit profound too

Independent on Sunday

A roller-coaster philosophical journey of Stoppard-like brilliance-Combining angst and farce in equal measure, Dry Bones is a very English comedy: Graham Greene meets David Lodge

Glasgow Herald

One of the most ingenious, resourceful and entertaining novelists in England

Philip Hensher

'Beard's writing can be breathtaking'

Daily Telegraph

'Richard Beard's prose is dry, nonchalant and fluent'

Times Literary Supplement