ISBN 0 7206 1193 8
Fiction
224pp
Paperback
£11.95
Available

Order Now

Boy Caesar

Jeremy Reed

Signed copies available. Email admin@peterowen.com for details.

AD 218, Rome. Heliogabalus becomes emperor of Rome at the age of fourteen, beginning a three-year reign of legendary decadence that ends with his murder in the palace latrines.

AD 200?, London. Jim has been researching the life of the little-known boy emperor. But he is disturbed. His boyfriend Danny has started spending a lot of time on Hampstead Heath at night.

Slut is the messiah of the Heath. He is the saintly figure at bizarre sexual rituals and he sacrifices himself to numbers on the orgy-tree. He doesn’t like Jim at all.

Masako, Jim’s friend, is a Japanese psychic. While on a visit to Rome with Masako Jim has visions of a blond youth, while Masako dreams of Heliogabalus alive and residing in the Eternal City under the name of Antonio. And Antonio’s face is strangely familiar . . .

In Jeremy Reed’s new novel contemporary Soho seeps into Heliogabalus’s Rome. As the Roman army marches through the city after the emperor’s blood, boundaries of time, gender and space break down in a thrilling conclusion as original as it is electrifying.

‘Full of delicate and beautiful conceits, and deeply erudite ’ — Independent on Sunday

‘Baroque time-travelling reading thrills . . . Reed’s tale tackles control and being out-of-control in virtuoso style’ — Scotsman

JEREMY REED is a prolific writer of poetry and prose, with seven novels and five works of non-fiction published by Peter Owen. He has won the National Poetry Competition, the Eric Gregory Award and the Somerset Maugham Award. He is also the author of well-received biographies of Lou Reed, Marc Almond and Scott Walker.