Also by Steven Hall
The Raw Shark Texts
Copyright © 2021 by Steven Hall
Jacket design by Rafaela Romaya
Jacket image © Victoria and Albert Museum, London
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First published in Great Britain in 2021 by Canongate Books Ltd
Printed in the United States of America
First Grove Atlantic hardcover editon: April 2021
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication data is available for this title.
ISBN 978-0-8021-4920-6
eISBN 978-0-8021-4922-0
Grove Press
an imprint of Grove Atlantic
154 West 14th Street
New York, NY 10011
Distributed by Publishers Group West
For Mighty A, and my Second Stanley
Contents
PART I I Don’t Believe in God, but I Miss Him
8 The Mary Magdalene Treatment
15 Mighty A, Greedy C and Missing Q
18 About Five Hours Later . . .
24 The Things that Andrew Black Reported to Sergeant Claybourn
PART IV The Gospel of Ink and Autumn
31 The Hero with a Thousand Faces
34 Combining the Letters by Which the Heavens and Earth Were Created