The King of a Rainy Country

When 19-year-old Susan takes a job with Finkelheim, the shady bookseller across the street from her flat in London’s grotty, bohemian Fitzrovia, she has no plan beyond making the rent and treading water till something better comes along. One day, however, leafing through the erotic books that are Finkelheim’s main stock in trade, she stumbles across a nude photograph of her old schoolgirl crush, Cynthia. At first she’s shocked, but then memories from seven years ago come flooding back, reigniting her ardor. Neale—her elusive flatmate and not-quite-boyfriend—is every bit as intrigued as Susan, so together they decide to track the angular beauty down. When they discover Cynthia is scheduled to make an appearance at an international film symposium in Venice, the broke twosome embark on a package tour to Italy as travel couriers in charge of a bus-load of American oddballs who’ve scared all the other couriers off. After various detours, breakdowns, and a raid on the bus’s emergency brandy supply, they finally arrive in Venice . . . and that’s where things get really complicated.

More of a boost “than any Omega 3” (Ali Smith), and every bit as “unclassifiable as the sexuality of its characters” (The Telegraph), this—Brophy’s most autobiographical novel—is an incisive, off-kilter story about figuring out who to love, and how.