In REPATRIATED the world is a dangerous place and the bomb is ticking - at home and abroad. In the shadow of the cold war, Mr Java - a war-damaged ex-colonial - drills his son for the future, drawing him deeper and deeper into his delusionary world. As the radio broadcasts news of H bomb tests, Mr Java writes letters of complaint to the authorities, dreams of horses, and stands at the front window, on the look out for spies and nuclear holocaust. His wife and her three daughters from a previous marriage in Indonesia form a sort of Greek chorus, providing a sceptical commentary as his obsessions build towards a dark, absurdist climax. REPATRIATED is an inventive, blackly funny novel that shows an adolescent boy trying to break free from his parents and finding he cannot escape their past. It is melancholy slapstick about how history is felt by the individual, about our colonial legacy and modern paranoia, funny, troubling, and moving.