Head to Toe

About Head to Toe

 

A novel of extraordinary surrealism by the famous playwright.

 

When Gombald Proval strays on to the head of a giant one hundred miles tall, it's the start of a journey through a blackly hilarious, nightmarish world, an Alice in Wonderland for adults.

 

As he travels down the giant's body the everyman hero is caught in a gender-bending love affair with the female Chief of Police, thrown in jail with the mysterious Doktor von Pregnant and finally enlisted in the all-out war between the inhabitants of the Left Buttock and the dwellers on the Right Buttock.

 

Will Gombald escape these myriad perils? And if he survives to reach the Toe, what then?

The Author

Joe Orton

Joe Orton was born on a housing estate in Leicester in 1933. He joined RADA in 1951, where he met his mentor and lover Kenneth Halliwell. Living on the dole (and briefly in prison, for defacing library books) the two collaborated on novels, though Orton's solo writing brought him more fame. During his short life he rose to fame as one of England's most provocative young dramatists and epitomised London in the swinging 1960s. His openly gay lifestyle has turned him into an iconic figure. He was murdered by Halliwell in 1967.

Reviews

'Full of the bizarre black humour that enlivened Orton's plays, this novel leaves you regretting there are no more to come'

The Sunday Times

'Worthy of Swift'

Auberon Waugh