An adventure, a black comedy, a fairy tale of sorts and a romance, "Little Gods" tells the story of larger-than-life Jean Clocker, whose birth challenges the very balance of nature and whose body resists all attempts to contain it. A girl - and later, woman - of unusual size and strength, fitting in is never an option for Jean, but it takes the chaos of war - and, later, America - to persuade her to fully appreciate her extraordinary stature. 'A gorgeous, sprawling novel and a rich, colourful tale' - "Metro". 'Four hundred and thirty-one pages of glory' - Helen Oyeyemi. 'A wonderfully inventive ode to being different' - "FT". 'Rich, gaudy, clever and irrepressible' - Ali Smith. 'A startlingly original first novel by a remarkable new talent' - "Independent".

A true story. Tuesday 16 August 1870, Alain de Money, makes his way to the village fair. He plans to buy a heifer for a needy neighbour and find a roofer to repair the roof of the barn of a poor acquaintance. He arrives at two o'clock. Two hours later, the crowd has gone crazy; they have lynched, tortured, burned and eaten him. How could such a horror be possible? With frightening precision, Jean Teule reconstructs each step of one of the most shameful stories in the history of nineteenth-century France.