How to Leave the House

"Profound-and profoundly sidesplitting." -Bobby Finger, The New York Times

It's Natwest's last day before he leaves for university, and there's only one thing on his mind: the deeply embarrassing package he ordered to his house-which still hasn't arrived. He won't leave town without it. Any alternative is too distressing to consider. . .

This is the story of twenty-four hours in the life of Natwest, and his small-town odyssey in pursuit of the missing package. And yet it's also the story of a middle-aged dentist who dreams of being a respected artist-but the only thing he can seem to paint is the human mouth. And it's the story of a tortured imam involved in a quasi-romantic entanglement with the local vicar; and an octogenerian mourning the death of her secretive husband; and a troubled teenager whose nudes have leaked on the internet. It's the story of Natwest's obnoxious ex-boyfriend, and his class-traitor mother and her childhood boyfriend, and the life-changing secrets he knows about Natwest's past.

Alternating between Natwest's idiosyncratic inner world and the perspectives of the other characters-and dazzling in its energy, imagination and originality-this is an outrageously funny and tenderly moving story about being connected to everyone and everything at all times; about love, friendship, and the lies we tell ourselves; about unhappy endings, happy endings-and whether anything really is as simple as one or the other.