Who Was Changed and Who Was Dead

Description

At the beginning of June the river floods, ducks swim through the drawing-room windows and Ebin Willoweed rows his daughters round the submerged garden. But the flood is only the beginning of the village's troubles. All of a sudden the miller goes mad and drowns himself in the river. As the village is afflicted by a mysterious virus, the villagers begin dying one by one. The newspaper asks 'Who will be smitten by the fatal madness next?' Comyns' unique voice weaves a text as wonderful as it is horrible, as beautiful as it is cruel. Originally published in England in 1954, this overlooked small masterpiece is a twisted pandemic tragicomic gem.

Barbara Comyns was born in England in 1909. She and her siblings were brought up by governesses, and allowed to run wild. She wrote eleven books including Sisters by a River, Our Spoons Came from Woolworths, The Vet's Daughter and A Touch of Mistletoe. To support her family she did a variety of jobs over her life including dealing in antiques and vintage cars, renovating apartments, and breeding poodles. She was an accomplished painter, and exhibited with the London Group. She died in 1992.

'The strange off-beat talent of Barbara Comyns [whose] innocent eye observes with child-like simplicity the most fantastic or the most ominous occurrence.' - Graham Greene 'Everyone should read Barbara Comyns... There is no one to beat her when it comes to the uncanny.' - Rachel Cooke, Guardian 'Comyns's world is weird and wonderful. . . A neglected genius.' - Guardian