‘Haunting. Geppetto’s voice, full of wistful overemphases and bewildered revelation, is absorbing as he takes in the oddity of his situation. And the book, sentence by sentence, offers much in which to luxuriate.’ - Sunday Times

‘Profound and delightful. It is a strange and tender parable of two maddening obsessions; parenting and art-making’ – Max Porter

‘Strange, moving and musical, it’s a delight’ – A. L. Kennedy

‘A re-imagining of Pinocchio, told from the viewpoint of the beast-entrapped Geppetto, it surprise and delights, and saddens and gladdens, from start to finish.’  - Jane Graham

I am writing this account, in another man’s book, by candlelight, inside the belly of a fish. I have been eaten. I have been eaten, yet I am living still. 

‘Art objects live in the belly of this marvellous novel, images swallowed by text, sustained by a sublime and loving imagination. Like all Edward Carey's work The Swallowed Man is profound and delightful. It is a strange and tender parable of two maddening obsessions; parenting and art-making’  Max Porter

‘Strange and lovely’  Rhik Samadder

'A beautiful and dark meditation on fatherhood, mercy, redemption and the alchemy of isolation. Strange, moving and musical, it's a delight' A. L. Kennedy

From the acclaimed author of Little comes this beautiful and haunting imagining of the years Geppetto spends within the belly of a sea beast.

Drawing upon the Pinocchio story while creating something entirely his own, Carey tells an unforgettable tale of fatherly love and loss, pride and regret, and of the sustaining power of art and imagination.

I am writing this account, in another man’s book, by candlelight, inside the belly of a fish.

I have been eaten...

So begins this haunting reimagining of the damp, dismal years endured by Pinocchio's father when trapped within the belly of the shark. In absolute isolation and with no hope of escape, Geppetto's harrowing account of man in extremis becomes the perfect vessel for something rich, strange, and quintessentially human.

With unrivalled verbal ingenuity, dark imaginings and an organic capacity for wonder, Carey transmutes his fantastical source material into something entirely his own.

145979470