Tangled Saviours

In 1986, abusive and substance-addicted action movie star Kirk Decker realises that his survival is inextricably tangled with the fate of a matriarchal barangay (tribal community) in the 16th-century Philippines.

Meet Kirk Decker, abusive 1980s B-movie actor. He’s self-destructing from drink and drugs, and some people want him dead. While shooting an action film in the Philippines, he has unearthly visions and weird encounters. Meet Dayang, the dutiful queen of a matriarchal tribe in 16th-century Luzon. Why are her people suffering from mysterious diseases? How can they call on the spirit world to save them? And what connects them through time, space and magic to Kirk and other violent white men in need of redemption?

Tom Sykes is Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing at the University of Portsmouth, UK and, as a journalist who has travelled extensively in Africa and Asia over the last 10 years, he has written for the London Telegraph, New Statesman, The London Magazine, Private Eye, The Scotsman, New Internationalist, Southeast Asia Globe, The Journalist, The Philippines Free Press and a dozen other titles.