The Alarming Palsy of James Orr [Paperback]

A Kafkaesque and darkly humorous “suburban gothic” that tracks the unraveling of man’s body, mind, and life.
 
James Orr—husband, father, reliable employee and all-around model citizen—awakes one morning to find half his face paralyzed.
 
Waiting for the affliction to pass, he stops going to work and wanders his idyllic estate, with its woodland, uniform streets and perfectly manicured lawns. But there are cracks in the veneer. And as his orderly existence begins to unravel, it appears that James may not be the man he thought he was.
 
A deeply unsettling story of creeping horror that consistently confounds expectations, The Alarming Palsy of James Orr introduces a writer of extraordinary and disturbing talents.Praise for The Alarming Palsy of James Orr

“A fresh take on Kafka, highlighting the potential for terrifying change that may lurk in our DNA. Lee explores themes of illness and the almost dystopian alienation that emerges between sufferers and the well, and does so with artfulness and delicious doses of body horror and contemporary British social satire.”
—The New York Times, Editors' Choice

“There are moments—sudden ghostly noises and involuntary spasms—that make us see the well-mown suburbs as James does, a 'brittle veneer on reality, one that might fracture or shatter entirely at any time.'”
—The Wall Street Journal

“Tom Lee’s clipped, cold-blooded sentences form a thin mantle over the sinisterly simmering plot of this mesmerising first novel.”
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