The Life of Almost

"The Life of Almost is a dark comedy set in Wales and a spectral reworking of Dickens's Great Expectations. Almost is a boy, brought up by his sister, Perfection. He is shrouded by bereavement and surrounded by the hauntings of his family's undead. ... He is a poet: a bard boy surrounded by a cast of family and friends drawn from sea caves, the embalming table, the graveyard and the dark Clandestine House, which respirese heavily and in which time has stopped. Like Pip, he sings into the sea and likes to tell stories ... the story of his life, his struggles and triumphs. He is thwarted in love but understands – the night he meets a ragged convict, for the convict is a merman, come on land – that he has deep and commanding powers."–Publisher