Winner of the 2020 Epigram Books Fiction Prize

Enter a shadowy mythology of serpents, Sufi saints and plainclothes gods…

A renegade prophet press-gangs chorister and first witness Gabriel into a wild road trip down the Malaysian coast to fight the Mouth, an existential threat to Malaysia and beyond. Meanwhile, in a sleepy town by the sea, Lydia traces the links between her late grandaunt’s eccentric lover and her involvement in the Communist Emergency. As all parties converge on Pahang, Lydia and Gabriel must grapple with the theologies and histories they once trusted, in a country more perilously punk than they’d ever conceived of.