A novel about the celebration of the transience of life, the eternal difficulty of love and a hilarious riff on our 21st-century infatuation with movies and the superhero solution.

Now a motion picture starring Andy Serkis and Thomas Brodie-Sangster

Donald Delpe is a troubled teenager. Not only is he a 'terrible teen' by default, as obsessed with sex, music, videogames and drugs as the rest of his gang, but he is also suffering from a life-threatening form of leukaemia, which makes him an even more difficult boy, both for his parents and his teachers. Escaping into his own comic-book realm of immortal superheroes, ruthless villains and sex-crazed vamps, he repeatedly dashes his family's hopes by refusing to fight the battles facing him in the real world. As famous psychologist Dr King is brought in to help, a glimmer of hope is rekindled. But will the doctor break the rules, betray the parents' trust and risk everything to help Donald achieve his greatest wish? Or will Donald be the one to save the doctor?

Inspired by real events, Death of a Superhero is a brilliantly original fusion of novel, comic book and film script; a celebration of the transience of life, the eternal difficulty of love and a hilarious riff on our 21st-century infatuation with movies and the superhero solution.

McCarten burns a literary firework. Sentences, paragraphs, pages are ablaze with wonderful word creations. McCarten, with Death of a Superhero, has modelled a novel which belongs on the literary catwalk. He is super-sad, super-cool, super-witty - and deserves to be celebrated.