Dry Bones

by Richard Beard

Jay Mason is experiencing a crisis of faith. Disillusioned with his calling as a Deacon in the Anglican Church of Geneva, and estranged from his pregnant girlfriend, he's about to fall into the murky world of celebrity grave-robbing. His church has been bought by the shadowy antiquities dealer Joseph Moholy, who arrives to claim its most interesting the toe bone of Thomas Becket. Moholy, it turns out, has a large collection of dubiously acquired relics ranging from the arm of Leonardo da Vinci to the jaw of Suleiman the Magnificent. He is keen to add to his collection and Jay, he decides, is the man to assist him.Honing his new skills on the last resting places of Elizabeth Taylor's lap-dogs, Jay finds that grave-robbing can be both lucrative and thrilling, however morally troubling for a man of God, and in Switzerland's cemeteries he finds a rich cast to work James Joyce, Richard Burton, John Calvin and Charlie Chaplin all receive his midnight attentions. But Moholy is a ruthless man whose ambitions are perilously high, and as Jay assists him in his search for the holy grail of relics, he puts himself and his loved ones in serious danger. A blend of mind and word games, slapstick and farce, and raw philosophic reflection on fundamentals, Dry Bones is a tour de force.

Genres: Fiction

Audio CD

First published September 9, 2004

About the author

Richard Beard’s six novels include Lazarus is Dead, Dry Bones and Damascus, which was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. In the UK he has been shortlisted for the BBC National Short Story Award and longlisted for the Sunday Times EFG Private Bank Short Story Award. His latest novel Acts of the Assassins was shortlisted for the Goldsmiths Prize in 2015. He is also the author of four books of narrative non-fiction, including his 2017 memoir The Day That Went Missing. Formerly Director of The National Academy of Writing in London, he is a Visiting Professor (2016/17) at the University of Tokyo, and has a Creative Writing Fellowship at the University of East Anglia. In 2017 he is a juror for Canada’s Scotiabank Giller Prize. Beard is also an occasional contributor to the Guardian, The Daily Telegraph, The Times, The Financial Times, Prospect and The Nightwatchman.

He studied at Cambridge, at the Open University, and with Malcolm Bradbury on the Creative Writing MA at the University of East Anglia. He has worked as a P.E. teacher, as Secretary to Mathilda, Duchess of Argyll, and as an employee of the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris. In the Mendip Hills Richard Beard looked after Brookleaze, a house owned by the Royal Society of Literature, and lived for three years in Japan as Professor of British Studies at the University of Tokyo.

He is one of several opening batsmen for the Authors XI Cricket Club.