Governors and generals. CIA and K Street. Not so surprisingly, politics have been on the brain lately.

In unexpected ways.

Adam Thirlwell’s debut, Politics: A Novel, just hit our shores after causing quite a stir in England, where the literary overlords at Granta named him one of the best writers under 30. Don’t even try to keep up. He’s only 24, and he also just won the Oxford scholarship that T.S. Eliot wasn’t good enough for.

But Politics is no treatise on parliamentary procedure. It’s about love. And sex. And how weird and funny both tend to get despite everyone’s best — and basest — intentions. To wit: “In this nervous situation, both of them wanted to have sex. Actually, secretly, both of them wanted to have had sex.” (Ouch. And yet, how insightful.)

Thirlwell, ambitious and clever as he is, has just as much to say about the nature of beauty, the Queen Mum snorting smack, the monuments of Venice, and a young couple who fall in love with an alluring Indian actress.

What would he have to say about groping politicians?

We can only assume that he’ll let us know eventually.

Politics: A Novel (4th Estate) is available online at amazon.com or at your local bookstore.