Dark literary fantasy · Adult · Forthcoming
The Forgetting Country
There is a place where lost children never grow up. It is not the place you remember.
About the book
Sol is thirteen, sleeping rough around King’s Cross and owing £8,000 to the men who groomed him. When a barefoot boy called Peter tells him that somebody knows, and offers to take him somewhere nobody will ever hurt him again, Sol follows him underground.
On the far side of an old tunnel beneath London lies a country of impossible stars, glowing rivers and giant trees, where dozens of children live without hunger, illness or fear. Nobody grows old there, and nobody is ever sent away. But Sol has learned the hard way that the sweetener always comes first, and he soon starts to notice what the place asks for in return. The children are not allowed to say their names, and the longer they stay, the more of themselves they forget. A dark and moving reimagining of Peter Pan for adult readers, The Forgetting Country brings in an outreach worker called Wendy, a one-armed man called Hook, and an old charity with a long and careful history. It is a story about memory, names and being held, and about who still counts the children nobody is looking for.
The world of The Forgetting Country
The Forgetting Country
On the far side of an old tunnel beneath London: a country of impossible stars, glowing rivers and giant trees, where nobody grows old.
Key themes
- Invisible children
- Young people on the system with nobody looking for them, and what it takes to be counted.
- Memory and names
- A person is made of what other people are holding on to.
- Kindness as a trap
- Comfort that quietly takes away who you are.
- Found family and promises owed
- The adults who refuse to stop saying the names.
