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Father Alberto and the Flying Girl

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What to expect

A bold, vivid and fiercely imaginative historical novel with an unforgettable narrator, exploring intolerance, kindness and what 'madness' really means.

In a remote medieval parish, under the rule of a ruthless Abbess, hapless new priest Alberto is charged with guarding those deemed mad – and therefore godless.

All ‘insane’ villagers are locked in the Abbey dungeons, released only for the riotous Feast of the Holy Fool. Alberto’s thankless task is to gather them again when the Feast ends – but as he comes to know them, he begins to question whether these so-called fools need saving at all.

Only one always escapes him: the Flying Girl, a mysterious child who refuses to speak or be caught.

As Alberto’s sympathy deepens into defiance the Abbess calls in the Inferrant Brethren: a brutal religious inquisition with whom Alberto has history... With pressure mounting, Alberto must decide where he stands. Protecting the vulnerable may cost him everything.

'Dark and strange and wonderful' MARK HADDON, author of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time

'Hilarious, moving, and delightfully weird' JO HARKIN, author of The Pretender

© Timothy X Atack 2026 (P) Penguin Audio 2026

Critics Review

'Dark and strange and wonderful . . . A marvellous piece of world-building, a celebration of care and a condemnation of the blindness of organised religion'
Mark Haddon, author of LEAVING HOME
‘Father Alberto is hilarious, moving, and delightfully weird. A timeless portrait of humanity in its very real darkness, counterbalanced with a passionate sense of hope. I thought it was brilliant’
Jo Harkin, author of THE PRETENDER
'Profound and strange and utterly original. A book about madness and miracles, faith and pain, human frailty and human kindness - you have to read it to believe it'
Rachel Seiffert, author of The Dark Room
'I've rarely read anything so vivid and empathetic, so gentle and yet utterly heartbreaking. It's historical fiction with a modern message, but not in a way that feels trite. It's religious but in a firmly human way. And it's about love, but there's no twee romance in sight'
Tabitha Stanmore, author of CUNNING FOLK
'I love historical fiction in which the route to the pre-modern – as a place, a time, and an earlier way of seeing and being – is furrowed through language. Father Alberto and the Flying Girl is one of these books. I was absorbed by every sight and sound on the page. Maybe not since Alan Garner or Peter Ackroyd has a word-dream of the past been conjured with such moving and brilliant magic'
Tom Benn, author of Oxblood
'Boldly written, richly physical and brilliantly inventive, Father Alberto and the Flying Girl lets us inhabit a beautiful, cruel medieval world made resplendent with a memorable cast of strange and wondrous characters, both human and animal. A moving and spiritual debut novel. I look forward very much to what Timothy X Atack does next'
Oisín Fagan, author of NOBBER
'The thing that struck me about this book (aside from its pitch-perfect, super-consistent tone, and the sharpness of the writing line-by-line) was its relevance. It’s about care, compassion and kindness, in the face of an unforgiving world. The story is as strange as it is universal, as dark as it is joyous, as hilarious as it is heartfelt: it's a truly special book'
Christopher Wakling, author of What I Did
Author Timothy X Atack
Narrator Timothy X Atack
Duration 10 hours and 28 minutes
Release Date
ISBN 9781529992144
Format Audiobook
Publisher Random House
Genre European history: medieval period, middle ages, Historical fiction, Narrative theme: health and illness, Narrative theme: Social issues, Religious and spiritual fiction
Availability AU, GB, IE

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