The lives of thirty-seven-year-old Francis Orme and his parents and the other residents of the Observatory Mansions are changed when the vulnerable, sympathetic, and resourceful Anna Tap moves into an apartment there.

Edward Carey's debut is a novel of immense originality - a strangely haunting landscape occupied by compelling and unforgettable characters.

Once the Orme family's magnificent ancestral estate, Observatory Mansions is now a crumbling apartment complex, home to an eccentric group of misfits. One of them is Francis Orme, who earns his livelihood as a living statue. When not practicing "inner and outer stillness," Francis steals the cherished possessions of others to add to his private museum. The other tenants are equally as odd: his mother and father, who haven't interacted in years; a man who continually sweats and cries; a recluse who prefers television to reality; and a woman who behaves like a dog. When Anna Tapp arrives among them she stirs their souls, bringing long forgotten memories to the surface, and arousing fears that this new resident intends to provoke a metamorphosis.