All the June Saturday afternoon Sam Pollit's children were on the lookout for him as they skated round the dirt sidewalks and seamed old asphalt of R Street and Reservoir Road... Sam and Henny Pollit have too many children, too little money and too much loathing for each other. As Sam uses the children's adoration to feed his own voracious ego, Henny becomes a geyser of rage against her improvident husband. And, caught in the midst of it all, is Louisa, Sam's watchful eleven-year-old daughter.
Head of Zeus, an Apollo Library book * Fiction
07 Apr 2016 * 576pp * £5.99 * 9781784971700
REVIEWS
'This crazy, gorgeous family novel is one of the great literary achievements of the twentieth century. I carry it in my head the way I carry childhood memories; the scenes are of such precise horror and comedy that I feel I didn't read the book so much as live it'
Jonathan Franzen
'The most fabulous book that hardly anyone I know has read'
Guardian
'Offers a singular and uncompromising vision of a family in freewill and is a world of serious moral intent'
BookWitty
Author
Christina Stead
Christina Stead (1902-1983) was born in Sydney but lived for most of her life outside Australia. She wrote fifteen novels and several volumes of short stories. Her most famous novel, The Man Who Loved Children (1940) is also published by Apollo.
ALSO BY Christina Stead
Introduction
Michael Schmidt is the founder of Carcanet Press and the general editor of PN Review. He was until recently Professor of Poetry at the University of Glasgow. He has also been Writer in Residence at St John's College, Cambridge.
ALSO BY Michael Schmidt
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