Twenty first century London. Award ceremony. Dermott Hoggins, the author of the Knuckle Sandwich (“a gusty, well written fictional memoir”), knocks out the critic Felix Finch. The publicity ensures the book will become a best seller. Cavendish is the publisher. The author and his “posse” want more money from Cavendish. Cavendish appeals to his brother but his brother essentially says screw you. Cavendish waits in a queue, on his way to Hull, but is ordered out to buy another ticket. Wakes up in Aurora House (based on his brother’s suggestion), not in his right mind (due to a Rastafarian’s sinister cigar) and signs into the AH thinking it’s a hotel but it’s essentially a nursing home. We leave Cavendish medicated, pushing around cold peas.
Literally about a publisher reading a book, editing books, deciding what’s including and what’s excluded. The publisher faces a pretty sticky fate. Luisa Rey is mentioned as a manuscript that needs editing. The author is publishing the publisher character. It also suggests that readers are more concerned with sensationalism and publicity, judging from the fight fight that ensures Knuckle Sandwich is a best seller. Sort of presents the entire literary scene as scandalous, comical, wacky.
Civilization: Aurora House: people love it. He’s trapped there. Cavendish plans to sue.
-Pigeon holes the literary scene as an extension of 21st century frivolity.
Motifs, themes, etc.
-Description of the room at this “rest home” as a locked prison cell. Comforts confine him. Other people see it as a vacation. The need to be forced to relax under lock and key.
“A house is made my hands but a home is made by hearts”
“All my loved ones are dead or bonkers or at the BBC, except my prankster brother!”
“I was a man in a horror B-movie asylum.”
Solitude versus society
“The Ghastly Ordeal of Timothy Cavendish, if you will. Now that is a snappy title.” First time the text is mentioned as something that can actually be edited and changed (Luisa Rey). Everything else is letters/malleable texts.
“Half Lives- a lousy name for a work of fiction- and subtitled The First Luisa Rey Mystery. Lousier and lousier. Its lady author, one dubiously named Hilary V. Hush…”
