First edition. 8vo. Pp. [vi] 282. Dark brown cloth, lettered in gilt to spine. Jacket photograph by William Gedney, author's photograph to rear flap by John Kemp.
Light fading to orange strip on dustwrapper spine, else fine.
Debut novel which won the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize, The Guardian First Book Prize and was shortlisted for the 2000 Booker Prize.
"My father would have flipped a coin and watched his fate come twirling down to earth." A tale of damaged childhood, family feuding and compulsive gambling, set in the Maltese community of Cardiff's Tiger Bay of the 1960's. "An extraordinarily instinctive writer with a delicate feel for language, Azzopardi has written a scalding, thrilling book about the havoc and despair it is possible to wreak inside a family." –The Observer