'A small Gothic masterpiece . . . I have read it many times, and with every re-read I marvel again at its many qualities' SARAH WATERS

'A wonderful and original novel' ALAN HOLLINGHURST

'The strange off-beat talent of Barbara Comyns [whose] innocent eye observes with child-like simplicity the most fantastic or the most ominous occurrence' GRAHAM GREENE

'Quite simply, Comyns writes like no one else' MAGGIE O'FARRELL

In the brown hall my mother was standing; and she looked at me with her sad eyes half-covered by their heavy lids . . . if she had been a dog, my father would have destroyed her.

In Edwardian South London, Alice lives in the shadow of her domineering father, a vet who treats his family with contempt, in a house full of screeching animals. After her mother's death, she is appalled by her father's brash, lascivious new girlfriend. But as Alice retreats ever deeper into a world of memories, fantasies and rapturous longings, she discovers an extraordinary secret power of her own - which, finally, will lead her to a crowd on Clapham Common in a scene of ecstatic triumph and disaster.

Blackly funny and indelibly haunting, The Vet's Daughter combines shocking realism with a visionary edge.

INTRODUCED BY JANE GARDAM