Brian Bilston has decided to write a poem every day for a year
while he tries to repair his ever-desperate life. His ex-wife has taken
up with a new man, a marketing guru and motivational speaker who seems
to be disturbingly influencing his son, Dylan. Meanwhile Dylan’s
football team keeps being beaten 0–11, as he stands disconsolately on
the wing waiting vainly to receive the ball. At work Brian is drowning
in a sea of spreadsheets and is becoming increasingly confused by the
complexities of modern communication and management jargon. So poetry
will be his salvation. But can Brian’s poetry save him from Toby Salt,
his arch nemesis in the Poetry Group and potential rival suitor to
Brian’s new poetic inspiration, Liz? Worst of all Toby has announced
that boutique artisan publishing house Shooting from the Hip will be
publishing his first collection, titled This Bridge No Hands Shall Cleft, in the autumn. And when he goes missing Brian is inevitably the number one suspect.
Part
tender love story, part murder mystery, part coruscating description of
a wasted life, and interspersed with some of the funniest poems about
the mundane and the profound, Diary of a Somebody is the most original novel you will read this year.