A woman who can speak with cats, a boy who can bring dead spiders back to life, a healer hiding with charlatans (and drummers) in a hippie commune, a man who retreats into invisibility, a man struggling with the pressure of being born of immaculate conception…

Superpowers is a collection of stories about people who find themselves burdened with remarkable gifts that they neither chose nor know what to do with. With a cast of characters from the margins that are at once ordinary, hidden, lonely and somehow heroic, these stories are about playing the hand you are dealt even if you don’t know what game it is you are playing.


Note from the author on the origins of this book: “I began thinking a lot about hidden lives, particularly those lived on the margins; working-class single mothers, people who are simply alone, people who quietly help but otherwise are not storied. Those preoccupations developed into thoughts about what constitutes a ‘good life’ and what our culturally constructed ideas of heroism are like.”


Praise for Mark A Radcliffe:

‘Tender, astute and very funny.’ – Christopher Brookmyre

‘Funny, poignant, intelligent and compelling.’ – Jo Brand