Karen Sainsbury: Powder Monkey

A richly comic, superbly imagined black tale.Set in deepest Somerset, this is the story of Keith, our hero, his brothers Tam and Cameron, his Da who is a sheep farmer, his Ma who wants to flee to Albania, and Arthur, the dysfunctional postman. It's also the story of a dirty-minded milkman, and of Maria who is going out with Tam but who should be going out with Keith.Keith knows he has to escape, and can't keep sweeping up dead budgies from his neighbour's aviary (his only form of income). Scanning the night sky and drinking in The Griffin pub seem only to exacerbate the problem. But with no qualifications, no girlfriend and only his rusty old telescope and the nightly reports of the Mission To Mars probe on BBC2 to take him away from it all, Keith's options look limited.