This is a brilliant, baroque, honest novel that doesn’t pull its punches. It offers a searing critique of the welfare state, exposing how bureaucratic systems can quietly and efficiently kill people. It’s also bloody funny. Expect to wince (in a good way).
The narrative follows an Egyptian man who has settled in the UK and is asked to assist with the burial of a young Syrian man who died alone, with no one to commemorate his life. While this act of burial is the novel’s central premise, it serves as a powerful entry point into a broader exploration.
Through the protagonist’s work for the local council, the novel provides a sharply observed portrait of social services in London—how they function, how they fail, and how those who work within them cope. The relationships between colleagues, the disconnection between policy and humanity, and the intimate moments of connection all feel vividly real and sensitively drawn. The colleague interactions are so wild and funny as well as tragic. Like it’s hard to adequately convey just how incisive and entertaining this is!
This isn’t a “hard” novel in the traditional sense—Lewis approaches his characters with compassion and humour—but it’s hard in that it forces you to confront uncomfortable truths. It challenges the myths we build around immigration, council housing, mental health services, and integration and privilege. It shows how these myths protect some people while failing others entirely, depending on where you sit in society.
It’s one of the best books I’ve read this year. It’s a sharp, insightful urban novel that zooms in on individual lives while never losing sight of the systemic forces shaping them. A narrative voice that is clear, bold, and urgent. A must-read.
One word: baroque.
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