A Domestic Animal

“A compact, intricately patterned story of unrequited erotic obsession, focused on the relationship between a closeted English novelist and a beautiful Italian philosopher . . . Among the novel’s daring ideas is its suggestion that closetedness and English taciturnity are part of a common condition, each an art of concealment.” —Charlie Tyson, Harper’s MagazineA witty, heartbreaking tale of unrequited love by “one of the finest and most remarkable English novelists of our time.” (The Scotsman)Antonio Valli, a gifted Italian philosopher in his thirties, has left his wife and children behind in Florence for a one-year research fellowship at a provincial English university. Handsome and charming, Antonio is irresistible to men and women both—and he knows it. One who falls under his spell is Dick Thompson, a successful middle-aged novelist from whom Antonio rents a room. For the first time in years, Dick finds himself desperately, passionately in love, but the games the manipulative Italian plays with him throw the older man’s life into chaos. Published only three years after the decriminalization of homosexuality in the UK, A Domestic Animal is Francis King’s most intimate and daringly autobiographical novel: a “wry, anguished study . . . of love and jealousy [that] is hard to forget” (Robert Baldick, The Daily Telegraph).

• Publication date: 26 February 2026
• Page count: 256
• Dimensions: Height 128 mm; Width 216 mm; Thickness 20 mm
• Publisher: McNally Jackson Books
• Format: Paperback
• ISBN-13: 9781961341708