Though his novels have never enjoyed large sales or much extended critical attention beyond reviews, Giles Gordon's position among contemporary British novelists is nevertheless an interesting and unusual one. He deserves attention particularly for the clever and intriguing experimental fiction which makes up a large portion of his work. He has been referred to as "the only true inheritor of the late B.S. Johnson's mantle," and, like Johnson, Gordon exhibits an unusual enthusiasm for innovation at a time when such experimental fiction has not been much in vogue among British writers. During the dozen years which have followed the publication (in 1970) of his first collection of short stories, he has established a reputation as one of the few British novelists committed to technical originality in his own fiction, and one fully aware of the experiments that have taken place abroad.

The son of a distinguished architect, Alexander...