Product Description

Winner of a Somerset Maugham Award 1997 A stunning novel of political life, betrayal and passion, which lifts the lid on vice within the Palace of Westminster!and cost Hensher his job as a House of Commons clerk. John is a distinguished widower with a hump, two daughters, and an important job in the House of Commons. He also has a fondness for visiting rent boys in the afternoons, and a passion for secrecy!

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #351420 in Books
• Published on: 2003-05-19
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 334 pages

Review
'Sharp and funny!a beautifully polished performance.' Times Literary Supplement 'Sex, politics and death are the classic themes of Hensher's original novel. Set in Parliament at the time of the fall of Margaret Thatcher, it follows the disintegration of the family of a Commons clerk!Hensher is both sharp and melancholic. Here he is on Thatcher: "When she walked she seemed to extinguish a cigarette beneath every pace; in her walk, it could be seen that she was in the right."' Observer 'Incisive characterisation, first-class dialogue!Set amid the wigs and gowns of parliamentary officialdom, Philip Hensher's second novel exposes the hidden tensions in apparently banal lives.' Sunday Telegraph

About the Author
philip hensher is Chief Literary Critic for the Spectator, and regularly reviews in the best UK and US newspapers and journals. His other books include The Mulberry Empire, Kitchen Venom, Pleasured and The Bedroom of the Mister's Wife.

Customer Reviews

Coldly brilliant
I work in the Clerk's Department of the House of Commons, so was intrigued to read this. Apparently the book contains various thinly veiled portraits of Hensher's former colleagues - I think I recognised one or two. Hensher was long gone by the time I arrived but his name is still referred to around the Department with a sort of appalled admiration.
I found the book compulsively readable and beautifully written. It captures perfectly the claustrophobic, secret world of the House of Commons, the strangeness of the place and the people who work there. Hensher's prose is both grand and casual. None of the characters are very pleasant. Although set in 1990 against the backdrop of Thatcher's downfall, the world portrayed has a timelessness. These things combine to give Kitchen Venom a peculiarly aloof quality. Some of the passages about the arcane procedures of the Clerk's Department are likely to be incomprehensible to those who don't work there but they add to the cold oddness of the book, as do the occasional sprinklings of magical realism - such as when Jane, for luck, throws an egg into the air from the roof of the House of Commons and it doesn't fall down. Altogether, this is an unusual, haunting novel.

Unputdownable
I loved this book. It's sort of a precursor to "Line of Beauty," a portrait of the rot at the heart of the Thatcher years. Hensher is a master at structure and characterization. And his command of language was, for me, a joy in itself. He sketches his characters lightly, not filling in too much in the way of detail and back story, but that's part of the magic of this book.

It's also a fascinating look at the House. I'm American so this was very educational for me. Having said that, I do pose the caveat that this book isn't for everyone, and the House of Commons parts can be confusing. I recommended it to two friends, one American and one American: the British friend had mixed feelings and the American couldn't finish it.

Stirring up apathy
Quite the dullest and least engaging novel I have ever read. To paraphrase Chamberlain "far way people about whom we care little".

A previous reviewer has referred to the cool, aloof nature of this book and to the somewhat arcane world of the HOC clerks. Some people may find it all fascinating. This reviewer found the style and the subject matter tiresome.

I should add that I have been a customer of Amazon more or less since it started in the UK and this is the first time I have felt (de)motivated enough to post a review