The Fit

Description

From the author of The Mulberry Empire comes a short, delicious, rather disorienting novel about an indexer who wakes up one morning to find out that he has just been left by his wife! 'My wife had gone and I didn't know where she had gone. It would have been terrible if I had liked her but I only loved her.' John is an indexer, and a bloody good one at that. He lives in a beautiful house with a beautiful garden, and has a beautiful wife, Janet. (Yes, yes, they are called Janet and John. They know.) But lately, things have begun to go wrong. Thanks to his flawless index for Haddock: The Story of the Fish Which Changed the World, John has become typecast, and a commission for an index for Squid Through the Ages in Poetry and Prose swiftly followed. And to cap it all, he's woken up with a terrible case of the hiccups, and Janet has left him! Wonderfully funny and light, but ultimately very moving, The Fit is English comic writing at its best, from one of the most talented novelists at work today.

Philip Hensher is a columnist for the Independent, arts critic for the Spectator and a Granta Best of Young British novelist. He has written six novels, including The Mulberry Empire and the Booker-shortlisted The Northern Clemency, and one collection of short stories. He lives in South London.

Praise for The Fit: 'It's when he turns his pen to the more minute matters of the body and heart that Hensher changes from a merely clever writer into a moving one.' Ned Denny, Daily Mail 'Hensher is a publisher's dream. At last, he seems to have returned to the fictional territory of his earliest novel, trusting less to research than to his sharp wit, keen eye and love of London.' Patrick Gale, Independent 'Hensher is gifted with a great virtuosity and a relentless intelligence.' Ian Sansom, Guardian Praise for The Mulberry Empire: 'Exuberant, overflowing with life, highly-coloured, entrancing: a novel to lose yourself in! Nabokov said that the novelist must be storyteller, teacher, and enchanter. In this novel Hensher is triumphantly all three.' Scotsman 'A deeply human work, gorgeous, glittering and never dull.' Independent on Sunday 'Prepare to be dazzled! The Mulberry Empire is executed with flair, confidence and great energy -- a really terrific read and a hell of an achievement.' Daily Telegraph