Filthy first pages: do they make you want to read on?

Christos Tsiolkas has opened his new short story collection with a bang. But is an explicit first page likely to turn off readers?

It takes a lot to shock the average reader these days, but Christos Tsiolkass collection of stories, Merciless Gods, has already raised a few eyebrows.

The collection, to be published on 1 November, is full of Tsiolkass trademark preoccupation with relationships, sex and family, but even regular readers of his work may find some of the prose a little too prurient for their tastes.

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