High John The Conqueror
  • Published: 1 December 2010
  • ISBN: 9781409020813
  • Imprint: Vintage Digital
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 320

High John The Conqueror

Formats & editions
EBook
1 Dec 2010
Paperback
15 May 2007
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A brilliantly original novel set in a dystopian future London.

A dark comedy, written at the Devil's dictation.

Welcome to London! Not quite the London we know. The King of England has converted to Roman Catholicism, along with his sons, and has abdicated in favour of his brother, now known as Andy One. Sickened by years of corrupt and incompetent presidents, the United States has petitioned Andy One to resume sovereignty over America. In England, the government of Christian Coalition Socialists has been ousted in a coup d'état. The survivors have gone underground, led by High John the Conqueror, chief of the Flagellants, a squad of paramilitary sadomasochists. To escape arrest and execution, High John (real name Organ McWhinny) fakes his own death and disappears, so successfully that his son Lingus, a boy in his mid-teens, believes him to be dead. Motherless and fatherless, Lingus takes to the streets.
  • Published: 1 December 2010
  • ISBN: 9781409020813
  • Imprint: Vintage Digital
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 320
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About the author

Jim Younger

Jim Younger is well known as a musician, playing mainly fiddle and mandolin. He plays and records with his wife, Gail Williams. He has worked as a teacher, but is now a government official. High John the Conqueror is his first novel. He lives in London.

Praise for High John The Conqueror

A deeply English dystopia...Each of Lingus's perceptions is lovingly worked, and so is each minor character's speaking voice. The novel succeeds because of the breadth of language it uses

Sam Thompson, Guardian

Darkly comic

Daily Express

Full of splendid disjointed moments, in which tropes from the picturesque squalor of the historical thriller are relocated into a satiric future

Times Literary Supplement

Rambunctious, rollicking, yet lightly spun... Interestingly different... Younger writes with great vigour and playfulness. His characters are rich and vividly drawn... Energetic and undisciplined, full of dirty, chaotic life - and death

Nicholas Royle, Independent on Sunday

So we have a fant-sci-historico-romp on our hands. And we'll need both of them because this is one juggling act of a novel....some will cover their ears but some will want to leap up to dance

Tom Gatti, The Times