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More copies of this ISBN:This title in other formats:The Late Hector Kipling: A Novelby David Thewlis
Synopses & ReviewsPublisher Comments:Hector Kipling is a famous artist. But Hector is not as famous as his best friend, Lenny Snook. And as they are standing in the Tate Gallery one afternoon, Hector's life begins to unravel. For a painter, this existential crisis is the place from which great art is born. If the painter happens to be a forty-three-year-old man with a girlfriend away from home, it is the recipe for disaster.
Soon it's all Hector can do to keep it together — between his therapist who shows up drunk at a party and introduces herself to his parents, an irresistible young female poet with a terrifying taste for S&M, and a deranged stalker with an oil-and-canvas-inspired vendetta, just trying to cope is enough to make a man cry. As the events in his life threaten to drive him toward full-blown dementia, Hector finds himself in a bizarre and murderous pursuit of a man threatening to kill him in return, spiraling into a hysterically surreal Hitchcocklike thriller — the story of how a man can become desperate enough to shoot his way out of a midlife crisis. At turns warm, witty, and joyfully absurd, David Thewlis's wicked comedy marks the debut of a savagely funny and observant literary talent. Review:"This laugh-out-loud, darkly intelligent debut suggests that Thewlis might meet with considerable success should he decide to quit acting and take up the pen full-time. London artist Hector Kipling paints huge canvases dominated by a single head. He's doing well, but he's not nearly as famous as his best friend, conceptualist Lenny Snook. Eaten up by jealousy, Hector believes that Lenny has made his fortune with stolen ideas. As Hector struggles to cope with an absent girlfriend, his parents' insane expenditures and a vandal attacking his most valuable painting, things begin to go very wrong indeed. Readers who have mourned the end of Sue Townsend's wonderful, long-running Adrian Mole series will find solace of a sort here, as will anyone who enjoys a thought-provoking skewering of modern art by a knowledgeable writer and an inescapably doomed but appealing hero." Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.) Review:"[A] rollicking, no-corpses barred black comedy... Review:"Thewlis's writing is natural and witty....Although not without its problems (a too-sharp plot turn, for example), The Late Hector Kipling is an interesting and wickedly fun debut." BookReporter.com Review:"David Thewlis has written an extraordinarily good novel that is not only brilliant in its own right but which stands proudly beside his work as an actor, no mean boast. He is the epitome of the true Renaissance man. A hero of mine." Billy Connolly Review:"Language is another destabilising effect, once you let it off the leash. An edgy, intelligent performer, Thewlis shows quite as much awareness of that power as you might hope." The Guardian (U.K.) Review:"The novel is most successful when it simply focuses on the title character's struggle to navigate love and death, feckless parents and the temptations of a goth-poet mistress with a taste for candle-wax S&M." Time Out New York Review:"This insider's satirical glance into the London art scene clicks when it skewers artist Tracey Emin's infamous unmade bed and depicts Gilbert & George doing something strange with each other's fingers. The rest of the book is good for a few grins." Library Journal Synopsis:A wickedly funny black comedy from actor Thewlis, this work features a man whose midlife crisis leads him to acts of not-so-quiet desperation, supreme idiocy — and murder. About the AuthorDavid Thewlis is an actor, writer, and director. He has appeared in numerous films, including Paul Auster's The Inner Life of Martin Frost, The Omen, Kingdom of Heaven, Seven Years in Tibet, The Big Lebowski, Gangster No. 1, and Naked (directed by Mike Leigh), for which he won Best Actor prize at the Cannes Film Festival. He has also appeared as Professor Remus Lupin in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban and in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix; he will reprise that role in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Thewlis is originally from Blackpool, England. This is his first novel. What Our Readers Are SayingBe the first to add a comment for a chance to win!Product Details
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