His girlfriend commands that he marry her. His wife demands him home in time for tea. His blackmailer commandeers half of his secret earnings. Then he gets hit by a bus. All in all, it's not a good day for Eric. And once he's on crutches, it becomes impossible to juggle two lives, three women and one vicious gangster. Eric's double-decker life and triple-tangled lies drive him to a catastrophic collision in Joseph Connolly's wry and ingeniously plotted black comedy.
Connolly is a funny man ... he creates a sense of intimacy and collusion with his reader that is rare in contemporary fiction.' Financial Times 'Entertaining, but emotionally and intellectually involving too, Connolly's memorable novel is a story of the light that failed.' Daily Telegraph
Terence is sick of people making a fuss of Alexander. His looks. His money. His fame. Who wouldn't resent so successful a son? Even if he is only ten years old. Joseph Connolly's brilliant new comedy of manners weaves together a domestic tableaux of characters - those with old-fashioned manners, tabloid manners, and no manners at all - in a satire on oedipal envy, neighbourly rivalry and the shameless stupidity of our fame-fuelled society.
Lucas Cage can now lay claim to the only part of his father's enormous legacy that he ever craved - The Works, the disused old printing house hard by the Thames. Lucas invites special people to share it with him: 'the family', as he comes to call them. 'Connolly is a funny man . . . He creates a sense of intimacy and collusion with his reader that is rare in contemporary fiction.' Financial Times 'The Works shows off Joseph Connolly's verbal glee, his relentless enjoyment of voices at full tilt. And in the monstrously loveable building, he offers readers a special treat.' Independent 'Connolly manages to suggest an overarching allegory of almost Beckettian largeness and openness . . . Entertaining, but emotionally and intellectually involving too, Connolly's memorable novel is a story of the light that failed.' Daily Telegraph
The moment he spots Maria's long legs at a party, Jeremy knows he's done for. The moment she sees that look in his eyes, Maria knows she's in for a free ride. The moment she twigs Jeremy's sneaking around, his wife Anne thinks she knows he's having an affair with Nan - their nanny. And chucks Jeremy out. Like dropping a grenade into a pond, this sets off a ricochet of concentric calamity that changes Jeremy's life; and those of Anne, Maria, Nan, Max, Hugo and everyone else they know; leaving them in disarray, washed up or exactly where they were before. In razor-sharp comic style, Joseph Connolly sets up his characters like pawns in a devilish chess game, prodding them towards war, conquest, or merely in ever-maddening circles. Lust, manipulation and fear of being alone propel Jeremy in the most inextricable of purgatorial repetitons, until he seems to embody society's cruellest absurdities about the pointlessness of it all - forever going on.
Howard's getting it in the neck at home. Dotty isn't getting any at all. And Norman's getting it at work - from the girl under his desk. What they need is a holiday to let off a bit of steam. And steam is just what they get. As couples of varied ages, class and income set up their deckchairs on the beach, the scene is set for a few crossed wires, a wave of embarrassment and a lot of sand between the sheets. Sun, sea, sex, squabbling: Joseph Connolly's bestselling novel goes straight to the secret heart of that sticky farce of lust and snobbery: the British seaside.
The luxury cruise ship Transylvania takes six days to cross the Atlantic - just enough time for the passengers to find their sea-legs and lose their heads. Whether it's husbands pining for their mistresses back on shore, stewards with a raging cabin fever or mothers sweating to outshine their daughters, they transform the Transylvania into a floating purgatory of Pacific proportions. S.O.S. is Joseph Connolly's brilliant boat-bound comedy, a novel of holiday-makers and holiday-haters running aground on each other's lives and loves. 'Getting away from it all' is hopeless - and hilarious - when you've brought it all on board with you.
In the kitchen Gillian loads the Hotpoint and frets about letting her baby go. In the bathroom Clifford styles his hair like Cliff's and wishes for a television. In the front room Arthur smokes a pipe and plots to fend off the loan sharks. In her bedroom Annette lifts up her nightie and heads for Clifford's room. In a tour-de-force of undressed taboo, four monologues intertwine to begin the story of an ordinary family in the fifties. How their seemingly contented, simple world bubbles under with odd desires and secret pangs - how it is shaken when they come to light - and how, step by step with the dawning sixties, life for all of them is whirled into a carousel of fashion, debauchery and explosive revelation.
THE NEW NOVEL FROM THE BOLLINGER SHORTLISTED AUTHOR OF ENGLAND'S LANE. 'There's a lot of brilliantly observed detail... it's very funny and very sharp' Michael Palin George is a fashion mad Beatles fan, selfish and cruel. Why his girlfriend Dorothy loves him is a mystery to her and to his best friend Sammy. When George callously chucks her he cannot anticipate that his life, post 1964, will never be the same. And forty-four years later, when George is sixty-four, rich and successful, his past will catch up with him and his family. 'Connolly unfolds a rich and compelling drama of life that is anything but everyday' Daily Mail 'It is Connolly's skill to get the reader to laugh at what should make you cry or at least wince' Times Literary Supplement
At just another drinks party that he very nearly chose not to go to, Jeremy catches sight of Maria and is instantly allured by the frisson of sexual excitement. His rash and immediate reaction sets off an unstoppable and far-reaching chain of events that will divert the course of not just his life, but those of his family and an ever-expanding circle of other, unforgettable characters. In one of his most brilliantly constructed and wickedly funny novels, Joseph Connolly takes us to the dark heart of sexual obsession. When all the lust and the lying starts to come full circle, where is there left for this energy to go?
Jim and Milly. Stan and Jane. Jonathan and Fiona. Winter, 1959. Three married couples: each living in England's Lane, each with an only child, and each attending to family, and their livelihoods--the ironmonger, the sweetshop and the butcher. Each of them hiding their lies, disguising sin, and coping in the only way they know how.
The sequel to the bestselling Summer Things. A summer of lust has given way to the winter of discontent. Brian and Dotty have lost everything and are seeing in the yuletide from a caravan on their friends' driveway. Howard and Lizzie have it all and they're not sharing - except for a lover or two. In a spirit of neighbourly envy, adulterous love and goodwill to oneself, it might be time to learn the true meaning of Christmas - whether they like it or not.
Mike Connolly, a fifty-something attorney, is now a recovering alcoholic, divorced from his wife and estranged from his daughter. While researching a murder case, a string of clues takes him to a tanning salon that is a front for prostitution and pornography. Connolly presses on, moving deep into a world where negative forces slowly and subtly turn him back toward who he was before he turned his life around. Surrounded by deception, Connolly does not recognize what is happening until it's too late. Download the Readers' Guide.
Plenty to savour—this modern overview covers everything from Escoffier to greasy spoons, dress codes to liquid lunches." —GQ (UK) This wonderfully lighthearted, humorous, and anecdotal guide to all aspects of eating out offers a wealth of guidelines, suggestions, top tips, cautions, advice, and insider knowledge. Organized into 146 A–Z entries, each of which is followed by a handy list of related topics, the book is not a restaurant guide but rather a shrewd and in-depth exploration of every facet of eating out – some more familiar than others.
On their way to a tedious dinner party with a couple they loathe, Barry and Susan find themselves in a stranglehold amidst a smashed bottle of whisky. As Barry's gambling debts propel him to desperate measures and Susan's boredom finds relief in Barry's best friend, the poor souls tumble from miserable mundanity into social apocalypse. In an acid portrayal of boozing, fornicating, money-grubbing and extreme marital angst, Connolly shows himself to be a master of the genre with wickedly comic panache.
This legal thriller addresses the real issues people must face in their daily walk with God--alcohol, sex, racial prejudice, dishonesty, and uncontrolled anger.
London, 1939. Mary and Jack. In love, unmarried and happy. Until the outbreak of the Second World War. Jackie, ever the lad, is bent on escaping conscription, but the contacts he makes drag him ever deeper into a dangerous criminal underworld. Yet it is Mary who undertakes the most surprising transformation. Despite striving for normality, she must confront a set of choices that will lead to a backstreet abortion and an unexpected vocation. With every tone and cadence of this novel, from wireless to air-raid siren, Connolly conducts with masterful hand and compassionate grace the voices of a once hopeful working class couple - now blitzed, battered and breaking into a desperate new dawn.
Pelham Grenville Wodehouse (1881-1975) charmed 20th-century readers with hiselightful tales recounting the innocent bunglings of his ever-endearingharacters, most famously his aristocratic gentleman Bertie Wooster and hislever and cunning manservant Jeeves. This is his biography.
Find out why the medical computer went to prison in the pages of this technology-based joke book. Readers will learn many other technological jokes and be eager to share them with friends and family. Easy-to-follow sentences will have young readers giggling on every page.
A satire of modern life, by the author of Poor Souls and This Is It. Emily's interior-design business is everything to her. Her clueless husband turns to young Milly, and Emily indulges in brief and carnal bouts with a perpetually furious PR man, who is much keener on her daughter.
In the peace and prosperity of the post-war period, a cultural revolution broke out: rock 'n roll was here to stay and restless youth exploded with energy. Celebrate the 1950s through evocative, extraordinary photographs and witty, incisive text. Coming alive are the decade's most popular TV shows; dancers letting the good times roll; and the fads, fashions, beatniks, bohemians, celebrities, cinematic successes, and defining gizmos, gadgets, signs, and ads. You'll understand why a whole lot of shakin' was going on!
This collection of images summons up the essence of the pleasure generation after generation has derived from being by the sea. The text tells the stories behind the pictures, with anecdotes from characters closely associated with the seaside.
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