OUR NAPOLEON IN RAGS

OUR NAPOLEON IN RAGS
Kirby Gann

Can one man change the world? Haycraft Keebler, self-appointed saviour of humanity, believes his mission is to inspire the people to rise up against the powers that be. And he will use any idea that springs from his bipolar mind - distributing a "revolutionary" newsletter, covering debris and trashcans in gold, instigating a bus crash - to achieve his goal of social equality for all. Most of Haycraft's schemes and dreams are hatched at the Don Quixote, a neighbourhood bar founded on unlikely principles. The regulars there - an arrant cast of society's dispossessed - keep a watchful eye over their well-meaning, but mentally unstable "Napoleon in Rags". The bonds that hold this fragile group of outsiders are forever changed, however, when Haycraft falls in love with a fifteen-year-old male street hustler. Weaving the hot button issues of mental illness, homosexuality, police violence, and racism through a novel that is nearly Victorian in its graceful storytelling.

211 pages, £8.95 paperback