The Truth About These Strange Times

the long version

Saul Dawson-Smith can memorise the sequence of a shuffled deck of cards in under a minute; he can recite pi to a thousand decimal places and he remembers every conversation he's ever had. He is ten years old. Howard McNamee is twenty-eight: lonely, overweight and poorly-educated. He lives alone in the north of England in the home he shared with his mother before she died, and far from the scene of his difficult Glasgow childhood. Through a series of unexpected events, these two solitary people find themselves forming an unlikely friendship, as Howard is taken under the wing of Saul's parents and thrust into a life in London (where he makes new friends, tries to navigate a bewildering new city, and accidentally acquires a Russian internet fiancee) as Saul prepares himself for the World Memory Championships - the event he has been training for his whole life. But as the pressure mounts on the little boy, and his well-meaning but single-minded parents grow increasingly less able to see beyond their own ambitions for their son, Howard realises he must act to save his small friend. The decision he reaches turns all of their lives upside-down.