This was T. C. Boyle’s first novel, a sublime, fast-paced fantasy that is both fun and indecent, announcing the arrival of one of the great talents in contemporary American literature. Set in the late 18th century, this historical fiction narrates the wild adventures of Mungo Park, a dreamer who leaves his peaceful native Scotland to venture into the wild, unexplored heart of Black Africa, and Ned Rise, a con artist and body snatcher who, in the tradition of Charles Dickens’s best characters, tries to make his way through the miserable streets of London. Two stories filled with anachronisms and hilarious liberties, blending the life of a real and a fictional character, running parallel until they converge in the first Western expedition to the sources of the Niger River. A dazzling display of imagination and humor that evokes Dickens from the dark Georgian London slums and conjures Conrad from the depths of the wild African continent.