When Jenny, a pretty but third-rate music-hall chanteuse in Edwardian London, remarks to her mentor and lover Leo, known also as the Great Pantoffsky, that she never wants to grow old she has no idea who he is. But her contract to love him will reside at the Metaphysical Bank in High Street Kensington for ever.
As Leo gleefully exploits the rich offerings of twentieth-century Europe – as a magician, fighter pilot, cocaine dealer and city banker – Jenny finds that the joys of eternal youth are more ambiguous than one might think. With the strain of constantly having to reinvent herself as her own offspring and watching friends, lovers and family live out their natural lives, she begins to regret her decision to sell her soul for immortality. But it is only when she becomes pregnant with a daughter that Leo’s true nature and that of her pact with him are finally revealed …
A compelling and fantastic journey in time and space, Miranda Miller’s ingenious reworking of the Faustian legend is by turns humorous, erotic and terrifying.
‘Miller’s intricate fictions are lit by the dark flicker of a strong and original imagination.’ – Hilary Mantel
MIRANDA MILLER was born in London in 1950 and has lived in Italy, Japan, Libya and Saudi Arabia. She has published six novels to date – including Loving Mephistopheles and Nina in Utopia (both published by Peter Owen) – a book of short stories about Saudi Arabia, A Thousand and One Coffee Mornings (Peter Owen), and a work of non-fiction that examines the effects of homelessness on women. She now lives in north London with her second husband, a musician, and is a Royal Literary Fund Fellow at the Courtauld Institute.