Fine comic writing is a rareish thing in the current literary marketplace. Jessica Anthony’s astonishing debut quickly seduces with her seemingly outlandish creation of Rovar Pfliegman, a near-midget Hungarian butcher who sells his wares from a converted (broken-down) school-bus, on a dreary thoroughfare on the outskirts of some small Virginian backwater. This grumpy mute, with his score of ailments and unusual proclivities (a pet beetle, anyone?) is completely entrancing as he recounts his family’s story against the murky backdrop of the calamitous Hungarian historical experience, from the tribe’s emergence from the Russian steppe, invasions and expulsions for century after century, right up to the travails of the Cold War.

The combination of wry humour and genuine heartbreak reminded me of a recent history of the country (The Hungarians: A Thousand Years of Victory in Defeat), whose title captures something of the wistful melancholy and life-affirming, indeed life-celebrating, quality which so characterises this book. And if Pfliegman represents any sort of archetype or anti-hero, then we haven’t seen one as spectacularly realised as this since Oscar in Grass’s The Tin Drum.

A captivating, super-smart, darkly funny treat from a veritable über-talent!