Short Books Recently Published
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Short Books Recently published Short Books 3A Exmouth House, Pine Street, London EC1R 0JH 020 7833 9429 [email protected] www.shortbooks.co.uk @shortbooksuk THE HUNGER AND THE HOWLING OF KILLIAN LONE Will Storr This is Killian’s confession – a strange tragedy of love, ambition and incredible food. Killian Lone comes from a line of gifted cooks stretching back to the 17th century, and yearns to become a famous chef himself. When he starts an apprenticeship under Max Mann, the most famous chef in the country, he looks set to continue the family tradition. But the reality of kitchen life is brutal. Even his fellow apprentice Kathryn, who shows Killian uncharacteristic kindness, can’t stop him being sucked into the debauched and vicious world of 1980s fine dining, and gradually he is forced to surrender his dream. Then he discovers a dark family secret – the legacy of a long-dead ancestor who was burnt as a witch for creating food so delicious it was said to turn all who tasted it mad. Killian knows he can use this secret to achieve his ambitions and maybe, finally, win Kathryn’s affections. But is he willing to pay the price? Will Storr is a journalist, novelist and photographer. His features have appeared in numerous newspapers, including The Guardian, The Times and The Observer. He has been named New Journalist of the Year and Feature Writer of the Year. His critically acclaimed first book,Will Storr versus The Supernatural is published by Random House in the UK. Killian Lone is his first novel. FICTION £12.99 / 302pp / 7th Mar 2013 / Demy trade paperback / ISBN 978-1-78072-080-7 / UK & Commonwealth: Short Books / Foreign Rights: Ed Victor e have the same memory. “A book as extraordinary as it is memorable. W It’s very early. The sun has just come up. The three Jordi Puntí already belongs to the noble tradition of us – father, mother and son – are yawning sleepily. Mum’s of the great storytellers.” made some tea or coffee, and we duly drink it. We’re in the Rock de Lux living room, or the kitchen, as still and quiet as statues. Our eyes keep closing. Soon we hear a lorry pull up outside the “A conjuring trick. Incomparable literature.” house and then the blast of its horn. We’ve been expecting it, El País but still we’re startled by the roar and suddenly wide awake. The windows rattle. The racket must have woken up the “Lost Luggage is an astonishing literary artefact. neighbours. We go out to see our father off. He climbs into Marvellous.” the truck, sticks his arm out of the window and attempts a El Mundo smile as he waves goodbye. It’s clear he feels bad about leaving. Or not. He’s only been with us a couple of days, three at the “A remarkable work of literary fiction that also manages to be unputdownable.” most. His two mates call out to us from the cabin and wave London Review of Books goodbye too. Time passes in slow motion. The Pegaso sets off, lumbering into the distance as if it doesn’t want to leave Jordi Punti was born near Barcelona, Spain, in 1967 either. Mum’s in her dressing gown and a tear rolls down her and is a writer, translator and a regular contributor cheek, or maybe not. We, the sons, are in pyjamas and slippers. to the Spanish and Catalan press. Punti is considered one of the most promising new voices Our feet are freezing. We go inside and get into our still-warm of contemporary Catalan literature. In 1998 his first beds, but we can’t go back to sleep because of all the thoughts book of short stories, Pell d’armadillo (Proa, 1998) buzzing round in our heads. We’re three, four, five and seven won the Serra d’Or Critics’ Prize. Lost Luggage is his first novel. years old and we’ve been through the same scene several times before. We don’t know it then, but we’ve just seen our father for the last time. We have the same memory. LOST LUGGAGE Jordi Punti Christof, Christophe, Christopher and Cristòfol are four brothers – sons of the same father and four very different mothers, yet none of them knows of the others’ existence. They live in Frankfurt, Paris, London and Barcelona and they unwittingly share the fact that their father, Gabriel Delacruz – a truck driver – abandoned them when they were little and they never heard from him again. Then one day, Cristòfol is contacted by the police: his father is officially a missing person. This fact leads him to discover that he has three half-brothers, and the four young men come together for the first time. Two decades have passed since their father last saw any of them. They barely remember what he was like, but they decide to look for him to resolve their doubts. Why did he abandon them? Why do all four have the same name? Did he intend for them to meet? Divided by geography yet united by blood, the “Cristobales” set out on a quest that is at once painful, hilarious and extraordinary. They discover a man who during thirty years of driving was able to escape the darkness of Franco’s Spain and to explore a luminous Europe, a journey that, with the birth of his sons, both opened and broke his heart. FICTION £14.99 / 368pp / 4th April 2013 / Demy trade paperback with flaps / ISBN 978-1-78072-044-9 / World English: Short Books / Translation Rights: MB Agencia WHIRLIGIG Magnus Macintyre Claypole is not ‘a large man’. He is a fat man. A fat man with thin limbs, like an egg with tentacles. And his life is not going well. He’s alone, idle and on the brink of a medical crisis when a childhood acquaintance makes him an offer he can’t understand, can’t talk about, and ultimately can’t refuse. A week later, he finds himself in the wilds of Scotland, plunged into an eccentric community at war over a wind farm. He’s supposed to be a backer, but he has no idea what side he’s on, even though it may bag him a lot of money. All he wants is to look like a hero in front of the woman with the bright blue eyes who brought him here. To do so he must run the gauntlet of a family with many dark secrets, some dangerous hippies and their hallucinogenic potions, and the wilderness itself with all its threats and dangers. Whirligig is a raucous, joyous, often poignant comedy about the redemptive power of the countryside. Written with peerless wit, it’s a timely fable that takes its place within the tradition of the great English comic novel. It’s The Wicker Man as told by P.G. Wodehouse. ‘Whirligig has an impressively immersive Magnus Macintyre grew up in suburban Oxford and rural Argyll, and read sense of wry, often brilliantly dark History at Jesus College, Cambridge. He has been a serial entrepreneur in magazine publishing, film, television, and wind farming, with varying degrees involvement. Its voice is strong and clear of success. Only once has he had a proper job, as managing director of the and fresh and rousing. Like a bagpipe.’ New Statesman. He now lives in Somerset with Lucie and their two children, Jez Butterworth, author of Jerusalem and writes full time. Whirligig is his first novel. FICTION £7.99 / 288pp / 4th April 2013/ B format paperback / ISBN 978-1-78072-127-9 / World Rights: Short Books A COMMONPLACE KILLING Siân Busby On a damp July morning in 1946, two schoolboys find a woman’s body in a blitzed churchyard in Holloway, north London. The woman is identified as Lillian Frobisher, who lived with her family in a drab, bomb-damaged house a couple of streets away. She had been strangled and left on a pile of rubble with her clothes and handbag apparently intact. The police assume that Lil must have been the random victim of an ex- serviceman looking for a cheap thrill; but the autopsy finds no evidence of sexual assault and Divisional Detective Inspector Jim Cooper turns his attention to the victim’s private life. How did Lil come to be in the churchyard – a well-known lovers’ haunt? If she hadn’t been raped, why was she strangled? Why was her husband seemingly unaware that she had failed to come home on the night she was murdered? The facts of the case, as DDI Cooper unravels them, point to a postwar world of disillusionment, bitterness and emotional disturbance, one in which getting back to normal is proving to be far more difficult than the triumphalism and cheerful optimism of the news reels allows... Siân Busby was an award-winning writer, broadcaster and film maker. She published four books, including The Cruel Mother, a memoir of her great-grandmother which won the Mind Book Award in 2004; and a novel, McNaughten, which was published to critical acclaim in 2009. She was married to the BBC Business editor, Robert Peston, and had two sons. She died in September 2012 after a long illness and will be much missed. FICTION £12.99 / 304pp / 2nd May 2013/ Demy trade paperback / ISBN 978-1-78072-148-4/ World Rights: Short Books BE YOUR OWN NUTRITIONIST Rethink your Relationship with Food: Discover The True Art of Healthy Eating George Cooper Bombarded by fad diets and scary slogans telling you how to eat healthily and lose weight? Confused as to which of the hundreds of diet books out there is telling the truth? Be Your Own Nutritionist has the answers.