The Waterfords and the Oxfords are two fairly ordinary families, with one significant exception: they are the inventions of a depressed writer who now seems unable to control them: "I'm quite happy to rattle off their name, their shoe size, the colour of their hair, and let genius and instinct take it from there." Little does he suspect where this laissez-faire policy will lead him.

A riveting, worldly and memorably original work of fiction, it is also riotously funny.