Talbot & The Fall: A Comedy (With Support). The novel is a spirited consideration of art, death, and ordinary life, interweaving historical visions and a rather cheeky chorus alongside the dual narratives of John Talbot and his daughter, Charlie.
Select questions animate Talbot: Can art help overcome our fear of death? Can we make art without knowing death? In exploring them, the novel unites the threads of Michael's encyclopedic reading, creative energy, and love of a particular band into a postmodern, post-punk romp through a week in the life of its central players. Waiting for the results of a colonoscopy, Talbot, a Welshman and a Tube driver, has seven days to think about his life, even do something significant. Though he never went to university, he's received an education of a kind from the words and music of The Fall and their lead singer, 'The Captain' Mark E. Smith. Charlie meanwhile is entangled with her university writing project, waiting for inspiration, in whatever form, to strike.
From this spins out an entire world, moving between London, Wales, and Norfolk. As with Michael's earlier novels, Talbot embraces a expansive range of characters, mining daily life and all its complications through a singular voice and vision. Talbot & The Fall is a work of unrelenting energy and ingenuity, palpated not only by the spirits who observe and describe John's momentous week, but also by those most ancient dramas: family, death, music, and art. We're honored to be able to publish the latest novel from Michael Nath, and to inaugurate our own publishing endeavor in the spirit of those muses he so brilliantly brings to life.
Michael Nath is a novelist, essayist, and academic brought up in South Wales and England. Of Welsh and Indian heritage, he holds a PhD from the University of Edinburgh and teaches English Literature and Creative Writing at the University of Westminster.
Nath is the author of three acclaimed novels: La Rochelle (Route, 2010), which was shortlisted for the James Tait Black Prize for Fiction, British Story (Route, 2014), and The Treatment (Quercus, 2020). His forthcoming novel, Talbot & The Fall: A Comedy (With Support), will be published by Indirect Books in 2026, and he is currently at work on Hamilton's Big Favour: Or, A Woman Possessed, a novel exploring the subject of laughter.
His short fiction, novel extracts, creative nonfiction, and interviews have appeared in Stand: New Welsh Review, Critical Quarterly, Route Anthologies, L'Esprit Literary Review, West Trade Review, and elsewhere. Selections from British Story were translated into Spanish for Argonauta (Issue 3, 2016). He has also published academic essays and articles on modernism and creative writing practice, most recently in L'Esprit Winter Quarterly (2023).
The Society Club in Soho named a cocktail in his honor - "Dr Nath's Fogcutter".
