William’s Progress

A brilliant comic novel about love, marriage, parenthood and the million tiny little things that conspire to trip you up on the rocky road to all three.

William has a twelve-year-old boss bent on his destruction; the interior design duo from hell re-decorating his bathroom; and an angry ginger midget with a mean right hook on his case.

Then there’s the flood.

And the village full of Machiavellian nutters.

On the plus side, he has as a gorgeous wife and an adorable new son – and he loves them both. It’s just a shame that parenthood doesn’t stop him doing the wrong thing at precisely the wrong time, with catastrophic results for his small – and increasingly exasperated – family.

It’s very nearly too much for one man to handle.

Correction. It is ENTIRELY too much for one man to handle.

And that man is William Walker.

Reviews

Praise from William Walker’s First Year of Marriage:

‘Matt Rudd’s sparklingly energetic, sometimes laugh-aloud, sometimes touching novel…mixes the accident-prone and amiable prattishness of Lucky Jim and Bridget Jones with a liberal dollop of farce.…William turns out to be an innocent searching for the right path.…Getting to know him is to enter into the blundering, puzzled hell of the male up against the eternal feminine enigma.’ Elizabeth Buchan, Sunday Times

‘Hilarious and hugely enjoyable. A frank, funny insight into what men really think about women and marriage.’ Tracy Quan, author of Diary of a Jetssetting Call Girl

‘Writing genius…the hilarious insights into a man’s mind will make you laugh out loud’ Cosmo

'Meet the male Bridget Jones. William’s just married and has a view on everything from ex-girlfirends and wives to male best friends and work. But his luck takes a hilarious turn for the worse. Be prepared to LOL on the train. 5 stars’ Company Magazine

'Matt Rudd's sparklingly energetic, sometimes laugh-aloud, sometimes touching novel gives us a further heads-up: actually, the Beast longs to be tamed.' The Sunday Times

About the author

Matt Rudd is senior writer at the Sunday Times. In the name of journalism, he has worn a short skirt in public, had a tour of a £300,000 lettuce shredder and stood outside Pippa Middleton’s book launch for six hours in the freezing cold. In the name of this book, he has spent the last two years on the road with binoculars, a notebook and many Red Bulls. He lives in Kent with his family. Follow him @mattrudd.