About This Book
The story follows Mr. Preemby, a retired laundryman and widower, and the close, often intrusive presence of his daughter, Christina Alberta, as their lives unfold in contemporary London. It traces Preemby’s dreamy, art-tinged background and his uneasy adaptation to commercial and domestic routines after marrying into a laundry family. An extraordinary public episode sees him assume a messianic persona called Sargon, whose rise, rejection, and symbolic resurrection provoke social attention and personal upheaval. Christina’s determined search for her father amid these events frames a meditation on familial loyalty, personal idealism, and the friction between private affections and public spectacle.