The Man in the Moon

(Paperback)

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Description

Nostalgic, razor-sharp and deliciously peculiar, this is a weird but wonderful comedy of manners by the award-winning author of The Tap Dancer.
William is a lonely young man on the loose in the late 1960s. A disastrous appearance as a stand-up comic in a pub called The Man In the Moon is only the start of his adventures, in which he consorts with theatrical types, frenzied advertising men and accident-prone lodgers.

Williams exploits lead him eventually to the consulting rooms of a Harley Street psychiatrist, where his delusions that he is a comic genius can finally be laid bare.

Reviews

Another splendidly surreal book from Mr Barrows pen . . . Beautifully written, with a splendid eye for the inconsequential detail Jennifer Paterson, Spectator

The Man in the Moon cuts a ripping tear through the elaborations of the current English tragi-comic novel Iain Finlayson, Financial Times

A splendid straight-faced comedy, not to be missed Penelope Fitzgerald, Evening Standard

Andrew Barrows deadpan wit and extraordinary ear for dialogue turn this short novel into a comic masterpiece Selina Hastings, Sunday Telegraph

Possibly the most misanthropic novel Ive read since Gullivers Travels Lucy Atkins, Guardian

The late flowering of Andrew Barrow as a comic genius has been one of the most refreshing events of modern fiction . . . Full of insight into our failure to connect, the book is sad, funny, even haunting Hugh Massingberd, Oldie

Barrow does not just observe where the bias is visual he also successfully captures registers of speech . . . A single word, looking no more than utilitarian, often evokes a whole personality Hal Jensen, Times Literary Supplement

The Man in the Moon is not only an extraordinary display of what the huge ears and dissecting blade of Mr Barrow can do when they are loosed upon the unconnected babble of those upon whom he eavesdrops, it is also a brilliant, hilarious and highly disturbing testament to what careless talk reveals . . . Imagine The Waste Land written by Harold Pinter Alan Coren, Spectator

Author Bio

Andrew Barrow (b.1945) is a writer and journalist, a regularly contributor to the pages of the Independent, the Daily Telegraph and the Spectator. He is the author of two novels, The Tap Dancer and The Man in the Moon, and the double biography, Quentin and Philip, published by Picador. He lives in London.