- Philip Hensher

The Fit

By Philip Hensher

From the author of The Mulberry Empire comes a short, delicious, rather disorienting novel about an indexer who wakes up one morning to a Dear John letter informing him his wife has left him…

‘My wife had gone and I didn’t know where she had gone. It would have been terrible if I had liked her but I only loved her.’

John is an indexer, and a bloody good one at that. He lives in a beautiful house with a beautiful garden, and has a beautiful wife, Janet. (Yes, yes, they are called Janet and John. They know.)

But lately, things have begun to go wrong. Thanks to his flawless index for ‘Haddock: The Story of the Fish Which Changed the World’, John has become typecast, and a commission for an index for ‘Squid Through the Ages in Poetry and Prose’ swiftly followed. And to cap it all, he’s woken up with a terrible case of the hiccups, and Janet has left him…

Wonderfully funny and light, but ultimately very moving, The Fit is English comic writing at its best, from one of the most talented young novelists at work today.

Author: Philip Hensher
Format: Hardback
Release Date: 05 Jul 2004
Pages: 336
ISBN: 978-0-00-717481-2
Philip Hensher’s novels include Kitchen Venom, which won the Somerset Maugham Award, Other Lulus and The Mulberry Empire, which was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize, shortlisted for the WH Smith ‘People’s Choice’ Award and highlighted by no fewer than twelve reviewers as their ‘book of the year’. Chosen by Granta to appear on their prestigious, once-a-decade list of the twenty best young British novelists, Philip Hensher is also a columnist for the Independent and chief book reviewer for the Spectator. He lives in south London.

Praise for THE FIT: -

'A comedy of manners crammed with cleverness, warmth and genuinely funny jokes … Hensher is incapable of writing a dull sentence.' Daily Telegraph -

'One of the funniest, most touching, most unexpected novels I've read for a long time.' Guardian -

'In the best comic novel tradition, The Fit is also serious and touching … and like many of the best things in life it fell from a clear sky, and is all the more intriguing for that' The Times -

'a sharp novel, full of deft dialogue, ridiculous moments and enjoyable sallies' Literary Review -

'Playful, perceptive, and guaranteed to keep the reader's mind on its toes' The Telegraph -

'Genuinely beautiful' The Spectator -

Praise for THE MULBERRY EMPIRE: -

'It's when he turns his pen to the more minute matters of the body and heart that Hensher changes from a merely clever writer into a moving one.' Ned Denny, Daily Mail -

‘Hensher is a publisher's dream. At last, he seems to have returned to the fictional territory of his earliest novel, trusting less to research than to his sharp wit, keen eye and love of London.' Patrick Gale, Independent -

‘Hensher is gifted with a great virtuosity and a relentless intelligence.' Ian Sansom, Guardian -