Set against the rise of fascism in 1930s Europe, While England Sleeps tells the story of a love affair between the aristocratic young British writer Brian Botsford, who thinks homosexuality is something he will outgrow, and Edward Phelan, a sensitive and idealistic working-class employee of the London Underground and a Communist party member. When the strains of class difference, sexual taboo, and Brian's ambivalence impel Edward to volunteer to fight...

"A strange, haunting, exhilarating debut novel about survival and love in all its forms: about sexual awakenings and dark secrets, about European refugee intellectuals who've fled Hitler's armies with dreams intact and who have come to an elusive new (American) "can-do, will-do" world they cannot seem to find. A novel steeped in surreal storytelling and beautiful music that transports its half-broken souls--and us--to another realm of the senses....