Iremonger Trilogy
3 total works 3 total works planned
The Iremongers have taken up what was not wanted and wanted it.
Clod is an Iremonger. He lives in the Heaps, a vast sea of lost and discarded items collected from all over London. At the centre is Heap House, a puzzle of houses, castles, homes and mysteries reclaimed from the city and built into a living maze of staircases and scurrying rats. The Iremongers are a mean and cruel family, robust and hardworking, but Clod has an illness. He can hear the objects whispering. His birth object, a universal bath plug, says 'James Henry', Cousin Tummis's tap is squeaking 'Hilary Evelyn Ward-Jackson' and something in the attic is shouting 'Robert Burrington' and it sounds angry.
A storm is brewing over Heap House. The Iremongers are growing restless and the whispers are getting louder. When Clod meets Lucy Pennant, a girl newly arrived from the city, everything changes. The secrets that bind Heap House together begin to unravel to reveal a dark truth that threatens to destroy Clod's world.
'All of Edward Carey's work is profound and delightful' - Max Porter
'Dark and wildly original urban fantasy tale' - The New York Times
'If this were music, Carey would be Eric Satie. If it were film, he would be Tim Burton.' - Newsday
'A rare work of individual brilliance' - Inis magazine
Dark, gothic and delightfully macabre, the Iremonger family return...
Foulsham, London's great filth repository, is bursting at the seams. The walls that keep the muck in are buckling, rubbish is spilling over the top, back into the city that it came from. In the Iremonger family offices, Grandfather Umbitt Iremonger broods: in his misery and fury at the people of London, he has found a way of making everyday objects assume human shape, and turning real people into objects.
Abandoned in the depths of the Heaps, Lucy Pennant has been rescued by a terrifying creature, Binadit Iremonger - more animal than human. She is desperate and determined to find Clod. But unbeknownst to her, Clod has become a golden sovereign and is 'lost'. He is being passed as currency from hand to hand all around Foulsham, and yet everywhere people are searching for him, desperate to get hold of this dangerous Iremonger, who, it is believed, has the power to bring the mighty Umbitt down.
But all around the city, things, everyday things, are twitching into life...
'Roald Dahl by way of Charles Dickens' - Vox.com
'Astonishing and inventive, it calls out to be read' - The Sunday Times
'Dark and wildly original urban fantasy tale' - New York Times
'All of Edward Carey's work is profound and delightful' - Max Porter
'If this were music, Carey would be Eric Satie. If it were film, he would be Tim Burton.' - Newsday
The ghastly climax to the gothic Iremonger trilogy
The dirt town of Foulsham has been destroyed, its ashes still smoldering. Darkness lies heavily over the city, the sun has not come up for days. Inside the houses throughout the capital, ordinary objects have begun to move. Strange new people run through the darkened streets. There are rumours of a terrible contagion. From the richest mansion to the poorest slum people have disappeared. The police have been instructed to carry arms. And rats, there are rats everywhere.
Someone has stolen a certain plug.
Someone is lighting a certain box of matches.
All will come tumbling down.
The Iremongers have come to London.