Little, Brown Book Group

Even the greyest world contains within it more colour than a mortal heart can bear.

1973, Chicago. In a plain room in a Home for the Aged and Infirm, a life is drawing to a close. Isolated and eccentric, Henry Darger has spent his days shuffling between his apartment, daily Mass and the hospital where he worked as a janitor, occasionally scouring bins for newspaper clippings and treasures to add to his collection.

The world has not noticed Henry Darger, but he has noticed the world. He has seen the seismic changes industrialisation has brought to twentieth-century America; seen two world wars, hypocrisy, violence and loss of innocence. And finding the outside world to be little more than a vista of cruelty, he has dedicated his life to creating his own imaginary universe.

Unknown during his lifetime, Darger's work is now considered to be an iconic example of outsider art, its apocalyptic visions as disturbing as they are compelling.

FILL THE WORLD by Keiran Goddard, author of I See Buildings Fall Like Lightning and Hourglass, takes us deep into the mind of Henry Darger, in a novel that is shocking, mysterious and ablaze with otherworldly colour.

Coming February 2027!