Fisher's Hornpipe

Literature & Fiction

MCEWEN, Todd

Contemporary

Harper&Row

An inauspicious bump on the head on frozen Walden Pond starts William Fisher and his violin, Mr. Squeaky, off on an increasingly fantastic series of encounters and incidents in a dreary Boston

Harpercollins

All Joe Lake has to do, according to his Dad, is GO TO SCHOOL. But evil spirits have driven his parents from their dream home. Joe's models melt, his baseball cannot be caught. He discovers baleful connections between astronauts, dirty laundry, roasted chickens, Nixon, castro and dog pooh. Joe's sunny Southern California becomes a pandaemonium of crappy feelings bowing to one malevolont master: arithmetic. The spirits assume many forms: the hulking scout Gomez, Walt Disney, finally Joe's affable Dad, who becomes a mathematical tyrant. With his best friend, the plucky Fard, and Dr Herbert S. Zim, his naturalist hero, Joe attempts to flee, to find the America he knows to be pure- the country of cartoons. In this brilliant novel, Todd McEwen reminds us that children already have a civilisation complete: ARITHMETIC palpably re-creates the horrendous experience of growing-up, and makes of it a subversive comic classic.

Arithmetic

RANDOM HOUSE UK

Bantam]

McX, a Scottish inspector of weights and measures, looks at his drab life in a new light when he falls in love with beautiful Siobhan

McX: A Romance of the Dour

United States

Grove Pr

'This new American uniform - the baseball cap, t-shirt, shorts and trainers (why not a scooter?) is not about looking good. It's about disappearing into a new, unofficial, global army of cultural babies. It says: I eat hamburgers and watch TV and chew gum all day, I want everyone to play my game, You have to be nice to me and if you're not I'm gonna shoot you, I can't understand a word you say… and what is that but American foreign policy?' Todd McEwen left the United States in 1980, but it's still driving him crazy. He worries about cheeseburgers, Cary Grant, Henry David Thoreau, democracy, the Elks Club and Daffy Duck. Join him on his acid-reflux examination of what America has come to be.

How Not to Be American: Misadventures in the Land of the Free

Humor & Entertainment

Humor

Aurum Press

Who Sleeps With Katz

The doctor delivers bad news. What's a man to do, with the life he has left to live? He can cry, he can wonder which particular cigarette did it - the 564,119th or the 976,835th - or which brand. Kent? Pall Mall? Or (and as well) he can call the friend he loves in the city he loves and then set out down the avenues and streets of New York to meet him. He walks, he runs, he sits, he remembers. Every corner, every block has a memory: women, food, drink, friendship, the comedy of office life and of sexual success and failure. It's as though the towers of Manhattan have become a shelf of books, each to opened and regretfully read for the last time. A day to remember and a journey, truly, of a lifetime. This tender, funny novel is a salute to a great city's enchantment and the sweet, frustrating mysteries of life - by one of today's most richly inventive writers, described by the Guardian as 'one of the few real writers around'.

Granta Books

When the doctor delivers bad news, what is a man to do with the life he has left to live? He can cry, and he can wonder which particular cigarette did him in. Or he can call the friend he loves in the city he adores, and travel the streets and avenues of New York to meet him. Every corner, every block has a memory—women, food, drinks, friendship, the comedy of office life and of sexual success and failure. It's as though the buildings of Manhattan are a shelf of books, each to be opened and read, as if for the last time. This tender, funny novel is a salute to a great city's enchantment and the sweet, frustrating mysteries of life.

In this lively collection of new writing, seven of our most acclaimed authors and thinkers go head to head with Lust, Greed, Gluttony, Envy, Wrath, Sloth and Vanity to explore what we really mean when we talk about sin. The resulting mixture of erudite and playful essays and startling new fiction might not make you a better person, but it will certainly give you pause for thought when you’re next laying the law down or – heaven forfend – about to do something beyond the pale yourself.

The Seven Deadly Sins: A Celebration of Virtue and Vice

Rowson, Martin

Smith, Ali

Sutherland, John

Evans, Dylan

Barker, Nicola

Flusfeder, David

Short Stories & Anthologies

Aurum Press Ltd

A cinematic memoir and critical exploration of nine classics of old Hollywood by a contemporary comic novelist.\n“North by Northwest isn’t about what happens to Cary Grant, it’s about what happens to his suit. The suit has the adventures, a gorgeous New York suit threading its way through America. The suit, Cary inside it, strides with confidence into the Plaza Hotel. Nothing bad happens to it until one of the greasy henchmen grasps Cary by the shoulder. We’re already in love with this suit and it feels like a real violation.”\nTodd McEwen grew up in Southern California, so his head was hopelessly messed with by the movies. As the son of relatively normal people, Todd had no in with Hollywood, a mere thirteen miles away, yearn and try as he might.\nThis is a kid who loved the movies so much, he got up at 4:30 in the morning to watch Laurel and Hardy. A kid who insisted on his birthday that his father project 8mm cartoons onto the family’s dining room curtains so they could be slowly parted, just like at a real cinema.\nThis is a kid who liked to leave the movie and trudge up hundreds of dangerous iron steps to visit the lugubrious and always surprised projectionist. This is a kid who, years later, watched Chinatown over 60 times.\nA love letter to old Hollywood, this is a book for anyone interested in film. Movies discussed include Blotto, The Wizard of Oz, The Three Stooges, To Catch a Thief, North by Northwest, The 39 Steps, The Trouble with Harry, and many, many more.

Cary Grant’s Suit: Nine Movies That Made Me the Wreck I Am Today

Dramas & Plays

Notting Hill Editions

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Books by MCEWEN, Todd