Born in Illinois, Lucy Ellmann was dragged to England as a teenager. Her first novel, Sweet Desserts, won the Guardian Fiction Prize. It was followed by Varying Degrees of Hopelessness, Man or Mango? A Lament, Dot in the Universe, Doctors & Nurses and, most recently, Mimi. She now lives in Edinburgh.

By the author of Ducks, Newburyport, shortlisted for the Booker Prize 2019

Bloomsbury Publishing is given over to the life of the mind - the entire building is adorned, insulated and overwhelmed by books. Yet the snacking habits of the Editorial Department have given rise to a problematic situation - the place has been invaded by mice!

Into this mousey coup d'etat steps Tom, a marvellous heathen of a ginger farm cat who's never seen a book in his life. His career begins promisingly, but his effectiveness soon comes into question. Tom settles so well into the Bloomsbury routine that he sleeps soundly in his armchair at night while the mice run riot upstairs. Tom, it seems, is not cut out for mousing. He is an intellectual, he is Tom the Obscure, and destined for greater things.

I begin to suspect she may be some sort of genius

Funny, angry, sarcastic and utterly individual, Ellmann has been described as "one of modern literature's most well-kept secrets"

One of the few really innovative and original writers of her generation