As flies to whatless boys - Robert Antoni

"When in 1845 the German-American inventor John Adolphus Etzler claims to have created a machine that can harness the power of nature to free people from the drudgery of labour, he is met by both scepticism and hope.

Based on a real historical figure and the actual journey he made from England to Trinidad with the motley crew of followers he recruits in Britain, Robert Antoni's novel is a brilliant exploration of the persistence of dreams and the individual human stories that underlie Etzler's quest. In particular, Antoni's creation of Willy, one of the younger utopians, is a tragi-comic tour-de-force in revealing his contrary impulses-between young love for the sparky Marguerite, loyalty to his family as they discover the life-threatening realities of the tropical paradise, and his fascination with Trinidad and Etzler's utopian dream.

Not least of the novel's attractions is the richly comic account of its researching, in the titanic battles between the unscrupulous researcher and the librarian who will protect her photocopier, though not her virtue, with her life. How this prose epic of Trinidad's history connects to the present is a matter for the reader to deduce - but connect it does, in many satirical ways.