Fortune's Bastard
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
“A spontaneous seduction prompts a surreal chain of events in this raucous new novel . . . This is a wry, writhing tale about the forces that shape our fate.” —Booklist
After his highly popular Who’s Who in Hell, Robert Chalmers delivers his second novel, a painfully funny story of disaster and redemption that recalls Katherine Dunn’s Geek Love.
One morning Edward Miller, tabloid newspaper editor and reactionary alpha male, spontaneously seduces his temp in an office storeroom. The news doesn’t take long to reach his cold, beautiful wife—and it just happens to be their anniversary. By morning, his marriage is over, his career in shambles, and his house is on fire. Clearly, it’s time to leave town.
After a brief stint in Spain as an English teacher, Miller flees again when his cover is blown, winding up in a Florida town populated by carnies and circus freaks and ruled with an iron fist by the Half Man, a criminal and sadist with no legs. Unexpectedly, despite even a one-eyed albino hit man who seems to overhear every compromising conversation between Miller and the Half Man’s wife the Lizard Woman, Miller gradually realizes this may be where he belongs.
A brilliant ensemble black comedy and a touching statement on the redemptive power of love, Fortune’s Bastard confirms Robert Chalmers as one of Britain’s freshest and wittiest new voices.
“A novel of wonderful surprises, an emotional see-saw that can be very funny, very sad and very brutal. This is a story about a love that shouldn’t work at all, but triumphs against the odds.” —Michael Palin, Monty Python alumnus
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
A much-loathed London tabloid editor and philandering father of one gets his comeuppance in British author Chalmers's (Who's Who in Hell) devilishly indulgent, surrealistic second novel. Arrogant Edward Miller has employees who decorate his back with airmail stickers and a wife who announces her own infidelity and dumps him at their anniversary dinner. Soothing his bruised ego at a West End club, Edward is offered cocaine, and indulges in a night wild enough to get his photograph plastered in the newspapers the following day; news that his house has burned down comes as the last straw. He shaves his head and runs off to teach English in Barcelona, but is forced to flee again when he's spotted his wife, Elizabeth, wants to finalize a divorce settlement and there's a warrant for his arrest on arson charges moving on to Plant City, Fla., a town populated with stock carnival freaks and governed by sadistic, legless boss Vincent ("Half-Man") Makin, who holds him hostage at a trailer park. With inside help, Edward plots Vincent's murder just as his past life resurfaces in a surprise showdown. It's the circus freaks who prove to be the most fun (and who teach Edward some much-needed lessons), though this wacky ride is piloted by a strong central character witty and captivating enough to make for plenty of sinfully rich reading.
