Hurdy Gurdy

'What the doctor ordered . . . a fiercely funny novel.' Sunday Times It is the year of our Lord 1349 and it is the season of the Plague. Novice friar Brother Diggory, now sixteen, has lived in the Monastery of the Order of St Odo at Whye since his eighth birthday. But his life is about to change. The sickness is creeping ever closer and the monks must attend to the victims. When Brother Diggory is nominated to tend to those afflicted, he realises he is about to meet the Plague, and that it is more powerful than him. What he doesn't realise is that encountering an illness and understanding it are two quite different things. An uproarious and uplifting novel about sickness and health, the fashions of 14th Century medicine, and how perhaps we're never quite as cutting-edge as we might like to believe.

Christopher Wilson was the author of several novels including Gallimauf's Gospel, Baa, Blueglass, Mischief, Fou, The Wurd, The Ballad of Lee Cotton and Nookie. His work has been translated into several languages, adapted for the stage and twice shortlisted for the Whitbread Fiction Prize. Wilson completed a published PhD on the psychology of humour at LSE, worked widely as a research psychologist and semiotic consultant, and lectured for ten years at Goldsmiths' College, London University. He taught creative writing in prisons, at university and for The Arvon Foundation. He died on 9 August 2024.