Woke Up Laughing

What happens to a man when he lies to his psychiatrist all the time about everything What use is the advice he gets about this fictitious life If that man is Harris Wheatley - mid-forties, middle-management - he takes the advice and starts living the fable. If a man can be painfully aware of feeling nothing, that's the state Harris is in. Lynne, his wife of ten years, won't let him touch her any more; his suburban bohemian mother, Rosemary, won't let him alone, his job leaves him cold. Until the office syndicate wins a rollover lottery and Harris finds himself in possession of GBP 840,000. The last vital flicker inside tells him this money is his chance to reclaim his life. He decides to use it all for himself. He meets an entrepreneur called Terry Garland who needs several hundred thousand pounds to start construction of a health spa. Harris is less impressed with the business plan than he is with Terry - and his two women. Chest pains send Harris to a psychotherapist. When it's his turn to tell her about his life and problems he chokes - embarrassed, feeling exposed, and worse, inadequate and about to be judged, Harris makes up a life-based on what he thinks is going on in the life of charismatic entrepreneurial buccaneer Terry Garland: his women, his adventures in Hong Kong, his money, his plans, "Woke Up Laughing" is funny, frightening and alarmingly perceptive about the dreams we all dream.


Genre: General Fiction