The Alteration
Kingsley Amis
2013 · New York Review of Books, Incorporated, The
About this book
An alternative history novel set in a world in which the Protestant Reformation never took place. Hubert Anvil is a singer in the choir of St. George's Basilica whose life is thrown into chaos when his teachers and the Church hierarchy decree that the boy's voice is too precious to sacrifice to puberty. Despite his own misgivings, he must undergo castration, the alteration of the title, in order to preserve it. Will he escape this turn of fate?
Who this is for
AI · Sample
Quiet, observational, and lightly philosophical — the prose is the point. Best for readers who already enjoy literary fiction and aren't reading for plot. Frustrates anyone expecting clear stakes.
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