One Hand Clapping

Used car salesman Howard Shirley is watching England's most popular high-stakes TV quiz show with his wife, Janet, in their modest provincial house when it strikes him that his freakish "photographic brain" might make them an easy fortune. It also leads to first-class travel, luxury hotels, mink coats, some misguided philanthropy, and ultimately, outrageously, and comically, not entirely accidental death. Talkatively and divertingly narrated from Janet's worldly perspective, the tragi-comedy of Howard, his one-of-a-kind mind, and the modern world's trivia and trivialities makes for vintage Burgess -- at once hilarious and provocative.


Genre: Literary Fiction