Home Truths - Softcover

Lodge, David

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0140291806 ISBN 13: 9780140291803

Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group, 2000

Synopsis

From the author of the Booker Prize finalist Small World.
 
Adrian Ludlow, a novelist with a distinguished reputation and a book on the “A” level syllabus, is now seeking obscurity in a cottage beneath the Gatwick flight path. His university friend Sam Sharp, who has become a successful screenwriter, drops in on the way to Los Angeles, fuming over a vicious profile of himself by Fanny Tarrant, one of the new breed of Rottweiler interviews, in a Sunday newspaper. Together they decide to take revenge on the interviewer, though Adrian is risking what he values most: his privacy.
 
David Lodge's dazzling novella examines with wit and insight the contemporary culture of celebrity and the conflict between the solitary activity of writing and the demands of the media circus.
 
“Sharp, intelligent, surprising and fun.”—The Times
 
“Lodge is pure dazzling style, book after book, in his fusion of form and content.”—The New Republic

About this title

About the Author

David Lodge is the author of twelve novels and a novella, including the Booker Prize finalists Small World and Nice Work. He is also the author of many works of literary criticism, including The Art of Fiction and Consciousness and the Novel.

From Publishers Weekly

Bearing traces of its first incarnation as a stage play, this lighthearted and timely farce from veteran British writer Lodge (Therapy) skewers the media's voracious relationship with celebrity culture at the same time it examines a writer's responsibility to his talent. Decades ago, at university, Adrian Ludow and Sam Sharp were golden boys and best friends, certain that their careers would carry them to literary heights. Adrian published one highly praised novel, but when successive books met less acclaim, he elected to drop out of what he calls "the fame game." Now he and his wife, Eleanor, rusticate in a village under the Gatwick flight path, and Adrian is reduced to compiling anthologies. Sam, on the other hand, sold out early and now writes commercial tripe much sought after by Hollywood. When Sam is eviscerated in print by ruthless columnist Fanny Tarrant, he conspires with Adrian to get back at her. The plot they concoct--to have Fanny interview Adrian, who will secretly be gathering material for his own hatchet job on Fanny--backfires after Adrian reveals to Fanny that both he and Sam slept with Eleanor during their college days. An outraged Eleanor then takes her own revenge on Adrian. Lean and fast moving, the novella boasts spirited dialogue, titillating surprises (though a scene in a sauna takes place offstage), secrets spilled at just the right intervals, and visual tricks (Sam speculates aloud about what Fanny looks like in the nude, unaware that she has entered the room). Though the occasion for Fanny's epiphany about her mean-spirited reputation is a little slick, this is an entertaining read from a deft and clever writer. (June)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 0140291806
• ISBN 13: 9780140291803
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 128