Ten Thousand Sorrows

The beguiling story of a disgruntled, middle-aged man who used to be a minor civil servant and took early retirement after being assaulted by a member of the public. He has become increasingly irritated by Modern Society and the Repressive Government and eventually withdraws to nearby woods, where he intends to live as self-styled leader of the partisans, in a hideout which he constructs at great effort, realising all his childhood fantasies of dugouts, camouflage and lookout posts in the trees.
Meanwhile his relatives are starting to lose patience with his lifestyle. He turns up now and then in his filthy tweeds for meals, or to use the shower and do his washing. He has very little to do except sit by his campfire and write indignant letters to the local papers on the many subjects that infuriate him.
And then, having decided he is getting nowhere, he decides to stand for parliament.
A tale of a modern misfit and a sort of demented political biography, The Partisan is the extraordinary new novel from a brilliant and acclaimed young writer.