One Big Damn Puzzler

Hitting the funny bone and touching the heart, the new novel by the author of What We Did On Our Holiday.

On a remote South Pacific island paradise, an elderly tribesman is translating "Hamlet" into local Pidgin English. Much to his annoyance, he is interrupted by the arrival of an unexpected visitor. William Hardt is an American lawyer, he has Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and has come to help. And from that moment on, nothing will ever be the same.

On a remote South Pacific island paradise, an elderly tribesman is translating Hamlet into local Pidgin English. Much to his annoyance, his struggles with the Bard are interrupted by the arrival of an unexpected visitor. William Hardt is a young American lawyer, he has Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and he has come to help. And from that moment on, nothing will ever be the same. For what (and who) he finds there will challenge both his and our values and our ideas about love, life and even death.
Bursting with good things, from the islanders themselves - with their curious logic, strange notions about sex and addictive rendering of English - to moments of aching sadness as much as life-affirming farce, this exuberantly original novel confirms John Harding as one of contemporary fiction's most entertaining and observant chroniclers of the human condition.