LATTICING one cherry pie after another, an Ohio housewife tries to bridge the gaps between reality and the torrent of meaningless info that is the United States of America. She worries about her children, her dead parents, African elephants, the bedroom rituals of “happy couples”, Weapons of Mass Destruction, and how to hatch an abandoned wood pigeon egg. Is there some trick to surviving survivalists? School shootings? Medical debts? Franks ’n’ beans?
A scorching indictment of America’s barbarity, past and present, and a lament for the way we are sleepwalking into environmental disaster, Ducks, Newburyport is a heresy, a wonder—and a revolution in the novel.
It’s also very, very funny.
LATTICING one cherry pie after another, an Ohio housewife tries to bridge the gaps between reality and the torrent of meaningless info that is the United States of America. She…
FRANCIS PLUG is back. The loveable misfit is now adjusting to life as a newly published author. Interviews and publicity are coming his way, not to mention considerable acclaim. But Francis can't understand why people think he was writing fiction... He also has plenty of other problems - and very little money.
Fortunately, he's handed a lifeline when he lands a job as Writer-in-Residence at the University of Greenwich. Unfortunately, this involves interacting with more new people, which isn't exactly Francis's strong suit. Try as he might, the staff and students at the university seem to have great difficulty knowing what to make of Francis. (Not to mention the trouble that he has making sense of himself). Oh - and now he also needs to hook in some big-name authors for the Greenwich Book Festival, and has to write his own campus novel.
The urgent questions build and build - and Francis is in no state to answer them. Will he keep his job? Will he be able to secretly sleep inside a university office? Will anyone find out that he did a wee in the corridor? Find out as Francis embarks on a new adventure, more intoxicating and hilarious than ever.
FRANCIS PLUG is back. The loveable misfit is now adjusting to life as a newly published author. Interviews and publicity are coming his way, not to mention considerable acclaim.…
The story of a billionaire family dynasty, led by a gold-plated madman, stewed in corruption, mired in violence, riven by infighting, deception and lies… The resonances will be there for anyone who knows King Lear - not to mention anyone struggling to come to terms with the new world order - from the rise of the religious right wing in India to the Trump dynasty in the United States. This is not just Shakespeare repurposed for our times – it’s a novel that urgently matters in 2017, and which will resonate for years to come.
Jivan Singh, the bastard scion of the Devraj family, returns to his childhood home after a long absence – only to witness the unexpected resignation of the ageing patriarch from the vast corporation he founded, the Devraj Company. On the same day, Sita, Devraj’s youngest daughter, absconds – refusing to submit to the marriage her father wants for her. Meanwhile, Radha and Gargi, Sita’s older sisters, must deal with the fallout… And so begins a brutal, deathly struggle for power, ranging over the luxury hotels and spas of New Delhi and Amritsar, the Palaces and slums of Napurthala, to Srinagar, Kashmir.
Told in astonishing prose – a great torrent of words and imagery – We that are young is a modern-day King Lear that bursts with energy and fierce, beautifully measured rage. Set against the backdrop of the anti-corruption protests in 2011–2012, it provides startling insights into modern India, the clash of youth and age, the hectic pace of life in one of the world’s fastest growing economies – and the ever-present spectre of death. More than that, this is a novel about the human heart. And its breaking point.
The story of a billionaire family dynasty, led by a gold-plated madman, stewed in corruption, mired in violence, riven by infighting, deception and lies… The resonances will be…
Forbidden Line is a challenging, dazzling intellectual achievement. It’s also a book about love and companionship; a novel simultaneously touching and hilarious. Above everything else, it’s a pleasure to read – even if it makes you feel like you’re on a careering train, with all the stops and destinations rubbed off, and no idea where you’re heading...
Forbidden Line is fat, uncompromising and gloriously eccentric. Which is as it should be – since it’s a retelling of Don Quixote combined with a recreation of the Peasant’s Revolt, a gleeful hybrid of science, pseudo-science, absurd theory and profound, ingenious philosophy.
Don and Is career around Essex and London, tilting at windmills, abusing petrol station assistants, fighting with each other and everyone around them. They are on a quest – as far as Don is concerned – to reveal the truth about history (he says there's no such thing) and to uncover the secrets of the hyperfine transition of hydrogen... But Is – like most of us – isn’t really sure what Don is talking about. And all he really wants to do is get through to the next day – and back to his family. Both of which turn into extremely tricky propositions. , as Don takes him ever deeper into danger, and the very structure of reality – as well as the narrative of Forbidden Line itself – begins to turn against them both....
There’s never been a book quite like Forbidden Line. Never been anything close.
Forbidden Line is a challenging, dazzling intellectual achievement. It’s also a book about love and companionship; a novel simultaneously touching and hilarious. Above everything…
He pulled his coat around his shoulders and hesitated, thinking that he might turn back and have the girl bring him the calfskin gloves and perhaps even the Russian fur hat, but when he looked back down the street it was not there. His house was not there.
He pulled his coat around his shoulders and hesitated, thinking that he might turn back and have the girl bring him the calfskin gloves and perhaps even the Russian fur hat, but…
In the most controversial year in the history of the Man Booker Prize comes a book certain to add fuel to the fire. How To Be A Public Author will take the debate to another level. It will get everyone talking – and laughing – even more about Britain’s biggest annual book bonanza.
Francis Plug is a troubled and often drunk misfit who causes chaos and confusion wherever he goes – and where he most likes to go is to real author events, collecting signatures from the likes of Salman Rushdie, Kazuo Ishiguro, and Eleanor Catton.
As he adds to this collection of signed Booker first editions, Francis – a wannabe author himself – is also helpfully writing a self-help manual. This is devised with the novice writer in mind, and full of sage wisdom and useful tidbits to help ease freshly published novelists into the demands and rigors of author events, readings, and general life in the public eye.
So, “If you’re provided with a hands-free mic, clipped to your lapel, don’t forget to turn it off when you visit the toilet, or if you need to vomit before your event.” Likewise, it’s always good to be wary of the germs of fans – and “considering the use of elbow-length dishwashing gloves at book signings, and a large, easy-wipe kitchen apron.” And so too, cultivating a photographic ‘look’ for the many publicity shots you will be subjected to is also a good idea – Francis’s personal choice being that of Macaulay McCulkin in Home Alone.
With advice like this, and Francis’ warm and deranged personality, How To Be A Public Author will prove ESSENTIAL reading for anyone with an interest in the literary world.
How To Be A Public Author is a brilliant slapstick comedy, blurring fact and fantasy to astonishing effect, and it is also a surprising and touching meditation on loneliness and finding a place in the world. The Man Booker Prize becomes a springboard to explore what it means to be an author – and a human being – in the twenty-first century.
In the most controversial year in the history of the Man Booker Prize comes a book certain to add fuel to the fire. How To Be A Public Author will take the debate to another…
Beginning in the early 1990s, Randall is a satirical alternative history of the heady years of Cool Britannia and the emergence of the Young British Artists. It asks what would have happened if Damien Hirst had never arrived? If someone else had become the most notorious and influential young British artist? And what if that someone had been more talented, more provocative, more outrageous? And far, far funnier?
Early on in this bravura debut we are informed that Hirst was hit and killed by a train in 1989 (“apparently when drunk”) – and the focus of everyone’s attention falls instead on Randall. Randall – a big, lumbering ape of a man – is a genius of language as much as art, supremely able to baffle, bemuse and amuse the press, public and all around him. He makes a fortune, causes chaos, changes the art world – the whole world – and provides brilliant quips every step of the way: “There’s only two things you can do with art: make it, and buy it. Everything else – talking about it, thinking about it, selling it, looking at it – either comes under one of those two, or doesn’t count.”
Beginning in the early 1990s, Randall is a satirical alternative history of the heady years of Cool Britannia and the emergence of the Young British Artists. It asks what would…
