All the Materials for a Midnight Feast - Softcover

'A beautifully crafted work of fiction, graduating from a low-key opening into a real page-turner . . . Dexter couldn t write a phoney sentence if he tried . . . One of the year's most impressive debuts'
Sunday Telegraph

'Sharply observed . . . Readers will savour this embarrassment of riches'
Daily Mail

'Sheer comic genius'
Michael Bywater

'Dexter's gift is not only to uncover the stories behind the titles, but actually to shed light on the mysteries of literary creation.'
Guardian --...

A story of love, nuclear terror, the 1980s . . . and Philip Larkin
Born at the very height of the Cuban Missile Crisis, Nicholas has lived his life in terror of atomic meltdown. Now, on the eve of his 48th birthday, he is on an overnight coach ride to join an anti-nuclear rally at Faslane in Scotland.
His fellow travellers remind him of his younger self at Hull University in the 1980s. As the coach rolls through the night, the floodgates of memory open, and Nicholas begins to scrawl episodes from his past into a notebook. From these memories -- sometimes poignant, sometimes comic, and often involving Philip Larkin -- a picture soon emerges: of a devastating first love, and a fragile mind struggling to stay sane in a world that seems headed for annihilation.
Dexter's tragi-comic tour de force will be adored by anyone who has ever asked themselves: am I crazy, or is everyone else?