'"If I had urinated immediately after breakfast, the Mob would never have burnt down the orphanage."
So begins the seriously funny, genre-busting tale of Jude: Level 1, a Tipperary-reared orphan who on his 18th birthday sets off to discover the wide world and his true parentage. The prologue to Jude, a story called The Orphan and the Mob, recently won the prestigious UK National Short Story Prize 2007.
Now living in Berlin, Julian makes a welcome return to his adopted hometown to read from his new novel.