The two moons of Rayner Heppenstall's title [Two Moons] are not the astronomical bodies that might imply a descent into Anglo-Vonnegutism, but those more familiar as patronising approximations of 'savage' speech—the periods of time that we call lunar months or lunations. The two in question are consecutive, those of August and September 1972; their phases frame the events of this extraordinary novel without restricting its temporal scope, which easily accommodates 50-year-old memories, as well as a 'writing present' about a year after the main events.

These events are not in themselves outstandingly strange or momentous. They concern the consequences of an accident—a fall in Croydon—to Lewis Atha…. [There is] a parallel personal tragedy, in which a young bellringer is killed travelling from work.

The method—presenting in close focus a series of fictional events against a background of real ones in long focus—is not new...