Me, the moon and Elvis Presley - Christopher Hope

Me, the Moon and Elvis Presley tells the story of Buckingham, a small town in the middle of the South African veldt. Beginning in 1949, the novel reveals the concerns and character of the people of South Africa and how the twentieth century almost passes them by. It ends with the celebration of the first year of democracy in 1995 and of the Elvis Presley competition which marks the hoped-for integration of all the races of the town.

'Christopher Hope is a master of robustly inventive satire . . . He has never been funnier or more extravagantly manipulative of political circumstance . . . One admires the imaginative fertility of a novelist who has been able to turn extreme situations into exuberant allegory' Penelope Lively, Spectator

'Very funny and acute about the contradictions and absurdities of the new South Africa . . . What impresses is the amount of sharp satire Hope has compacted into a brief book; with a dense economy of narrative, he tells the history of a whole town' James Wood, Guardian

'A funny and clever book pinpointing the iniquities of the old South Africa and the deceits of the new' Rachel Billington, Daily Mail

'Christopher Hope's latest South African extravaganza is mordantly perceptive as ever . . . An enticingly acerbic picture of a "brave new world" which has earned neither of these epithets' Julia Read, Scotsman