A crumbling tenement building with an ensemble cast, at the top of the Alley of the Seven Daughters in Cairo; #11 in the publisher's 'New Directions' series.
'Don't you know the house is about to crash?' signposts Egypt's social and political corruption and class conflict. Henry Miller – an early fan of Cossery – gave it universal importance – 'We are all living in that house, whether we realise it or not,' in an essay from 'Stand Still Like the Hummingbird'.
