The business in question is undertaking, and Henry Fowler, twice
runner-up in the Oil Fuels Guild Young Funeral Director of the Year
competition, is settling down into comfortable middle-age. Happily
married, he loves his children, his job and his home in south-east
London. Inevitably, things take a turn for the worse. First, his
wife's tennis partner, a celebrity florist and minor TV star, is
accidentally beheaded by a hedgecutter. Then Henry's best friend
Curly is diagnosed infertile. Desperate for a child, he asks Henry
to sleep with his wife (strictly for the purpose of conception, of
course). When Henry discovers that he too is sterile, he begins to
question his own wife's fidelity, the paternity of his offspring,
and, with the skeletons tumbling out of the closet, his very
identity. We are of course familiar with the premise of the man who
has everything, whose life suddenly goes off the rails. Jonathan
Meades, best known for his quirky TV programmes, on subjects as
unfashionable as the avoidance of right angles, vertigo's lure and
(most bizarrely) Birmingham, avoids all the obvious pitfalls of
such a scenario, though his distinctly oddball humour may be a
little rarefied for some tastes. Somehow he mingles outrageous yet
plausible revelations with Tom Sharpe-style farce, a topographical
celebration of South London a la Iain Sinclair and lashings of
almost Burroughsesque sex: 'they formed a seething machine like a
cardiac bellows which expands and contracts. Henry Fowler, mixing
pleasure with duty, changes gear, grasps her buttocks and
accelerates with the eagerness of a missionary who has espied
heathens on as distant bluff.'). And it works, mostly. Darkly
erotic fun. (Kirkus UK)
'One of the funniest and truest writers we have. No one understands
England better than Meades.' Stephen Fry An inventively nasty,
gruesomely comic paean to the sylvan heights of Forest Hill and
Upper Norwood, a warped map of the death trade's quotidian
strangeness. Henry Fowler was twice, long ago, runner-up in the Oil
Fuels Guild-sponsored Young Funeral Director of the Year
competition. His intense loyalties are to his parents, to his wife
and children, to the family firm and the trade it practises, to his
native south-east London and to his best friend Curly, traffic wonk
and surviving brother of his former best friend who fell to his
death at Norwood Junction. Well into middle age, and Henry's life
is running smoothly as he always hoped it would. But then: his
wife's tennis partner, a celebrity florist and BBC2 star is
accidentally beheaded by his electric hedgecutter while crimping a
three metre high topiary poodle; Curly, newly married and eager for
a child is diagnosed as suffering 'waterworks problems'; and Henry,
suddenly doubtful of his wife's fidelity, cuts a lock of his
sleeping daughter's hair. The foundations of a world, a family and
an identity begin to rock.
General
Is the information for this product incomplete, wrong or inappropriate?
Let us know about it.
Does this product have an incorrect or missing image?
Send us a new image.
Is this product missing categories?
Add more categories.
Review This Product
No reviews yet - be the first to create one!
Welcome to Loot.co.za!
Sign in / Register |Wishlists & Gift Vouchers |Help | Advanced search
(1)
bundle available
(1)
