Living With Annie

When his boyfriend is diagnosed with a terminal brain disease, Jon sees an extreme solution. It’s living in the rats in his biotech lab: a parasitic fungus, nicknamed ‘Annie’, which replaces its host’s nerve cells. But Annie has been linked to violent behaviour, there’s no precedent for use in humans, and Jon’s radical idea is blocked by his boss – who seems to have her own agenda. Desperate for progress, Jon makes a fateful decision. Enter Anthony Cogan: paralysed, dying and willing to try anything… One of the most original and inventive novels I’ve read for years. A thriller, a love story, a scientific fable: it mixes up genres like a mad scientist shaking a test tube. Robert Douglas-Fairhurst, Booker Prize Judge Pushes every button: funny, moving, compassionate, clever, immensely thought-provoking – a real page-turner. Robert West, Professor of Psychology UCL