Thirteen

Stephen Bardot is a taxi driver working the night shift in Brighton. Working such long shifts and driving exhausted, he starts to experience major alterations to his perception of reality. People start to take rides in his cab who know things they shouldn’t, and who ultimately may not even be real. He regularly gives lifts to Valerie—beautiful, haunting, but terminally ill—from 13 Wish Road to her "positive thinking classes" at the community center. When he is no longer asked to drive her, he fears that she is dead, and questions Sal, one of the night operators. Her response turns Stephen’s world upside down. "But Stephen," she tells him, "there is no such address. Wish Road doesn’t have a number 13." As time passes, the world gets weirder. People appear (and disappear) who know far too much about Stephen and his past, and who lure him further and further into the twilight world of Thirteen. But if he asks any questions, he gets hurt. Ultimately, he decides, for the sake of both his safety and his sanity, he must walk away—but Thirteen has no intention of letting him go. Key Selling PointsMass paperback launch of acclaimed cult novel Thirteen tells the story of a nocturnal taxi driver’s journey into a twilight world in which it becomes increasingly unclear what is real or who can be trusted.