The Great Pursuit by Tom Sharpe

The Great Pursuit by Tom Sharpe

Frensic and Futtle is a small and successful literary agency. But following a successful court case by a woman who claimed to have been libeled by one of their authors, the agency rapidly loses business. One day, a manuscript for a book called Pause O Men for the Virgin arrives at the agency, together with a note from the author's solicitor, saying that the author wishes to remain anonymous and that the agency has carte blanche on how it deals with the book. The book turns out to deal with the love affair between an 80-year old woman and a 17-year old youth. The populist American publisher Hutchmeyer agrees to sign a deal to publish the book in the United States for $2 million, providing the author carries out a promotional tour of the country. Sonia and Frensic decide to use aspiring but unpublished author Peter Piper to stand in for the anonymous author. But when Piper receives a proof copy of Pause from the publisher by mistake, it takes a certain amount of persuasion and arm-twisting from Sonia Futtle to convince Piper to travel to America.

Tom Sharpe has now turned his weapons of comic destructiveness onto that sitting target or lame duck: the literary world * Observer *
Mr Sharpe constructs his plot with immense careHe also, more to the point, has a nice line in lewd jokes. I understand that this sort of thing isn't to everybody's taste, but I laughed out loud -- Guy Bellamy * Punch *
Individual blend of robust farce and deeply cutting satire * The Listener *
Tom Sharpe is the funniest novelist writing today -- Philip Howard * The Times *

Tom Sharpe was born in 1928 and educated at Lancing College and Pembroke College, Cambridge. He did his national service in the Marines before moving to South Africa in 1951, where he did social work before teaching in Natal. He had a photographic studio in Pietermaritzburg from 1957 until 1961, and from 1963 to 1972 he was a lecturer in History at the Cambridge College of Arts and Technology.

He is the author of sixteen bestselling novels, including Porterhouse Blue and Blott on the Landscape, which were serialised on television, and Wilt, which was made into a film. In 1986 he was awarded the XXIIIème Grand Prix de l'Humour Noir Xavier Forneret, and in 2010 he was awarded the inaugural BBK La Risa de Bilbao Prize. Tom Sharpe died in June 2013 at his home in northern Spain.

SKU	CIN0099435497G
ISBN 13	9780099435495
ISBN 10	0099435497
Title	The Great Pursuit
Author	Tom Sharpe
Condition	Good
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	Cornerstone
Year published	2002-11-07
Number of pages	384
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.
Note	This is a used book - there is no escaping the fact it has been read by someone else and it will show signs of wear and previous use. Overall we expect it to be in good condition, but if you are not entirely satisfied please get in touch with us