Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #141940 in Books
• Published on: 2008-02-07
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 320 pages

Nina Kelly, Time Out
"(the plot) provides Torday with copious opportunities for comedy, which he readily exploits. But there is a serious undertone"

Review
'Remarkably, given the bleakness of both subject and hero, it is an incredibly good read.' (Marianne MacDonald DAILY TELEGRAPH )

'What makes us want to find out about Wilberforce is Torday's wonderful prose - the same simple, clear writing that made Salmon Fishing so readable.' (Susan Elderkin FINANCIAL TIMES )

'he has a good feeling for character and a sly sense of humour' (David Robson SUNDAY TELEGRAPH )

"a well-told tale.. Torday wryly observes Wilberforce's descent" (Paul Dunn THE TIMES )

"grows more and more poignant as the novel progresses.. satisfyingly full-bodied and slips down a treat" (Peter Parker SUNDAY TIMES )

"marks him out as a writer of serious promise, whose achievements in this second novel hint at bigger, better works to come." (Fiona McCann IRISH TIMES )

"Torday tells ths story in reverse, a familiar narrative device used effectively here" (Shyamantha Asokan THE BIG ISSUE )

"a really good book by a really talented writer" (A BOOK A WEEK BLOGSPOT )

"the pages practically turn themselves and the closing lines of the book, after such a heady brew, are so deliciously sobering" (JOHN SELF ASYLUM BLOGSPOT )

"the whole book is delightfully written.. Paul Torday is a remarkably original novelist" (David Sexton EVENING STANDARD )

"Telling the story back-to-front allows Torday to highlight Wilberforce's self-delusion; he's that familiar figure, the alcoholic who pretends that he's merely a connoissuer" (Josh Lacey GUARDIAN )

"exceptionally accomplished.. second novels are notoriously difficult to pull off but Torday has managed a near masterpiece" (Virginia Blackburn DAILY EXPRESS )

"Torday's confidence in his story's power to command attention is not mispaced.. Wilberforce is well worth sampling" (Nicola Smyth INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY )

You Really Must Read: "beguiling novel by the author of Salmon Fishing in the Yemen, about a wine snob's bad alcoholic manners" (SUNDAY TIMES )

"slips down a treat" (THE WEEK )

Four stars - a "subtly comic novel" (Claire Allfree METRO )

"another quirky offering from a true original" (Iain Finlayson SAGA )

"a heart-wrenching tale of alcoholism and a lonely man's search for identity.. a mesmerising page-turner" (Anthony Gardner Mail on Sunday )

"(the plot) provides Torday with copious opportunities for comedy, which he readily exploits. But there is a serious undertone" (Nina Kelly Time Out )

David Robson, SUNDAY TELEGRAPH
'he has a good feeling for character and a sly sense of humour'

Customer Reviews

Absolute tour de force
A tragedy, told backwards. One reviewer compained that since we know how Wilberforce ends up from the start, it loses dramatic tension: no it doesn't. The tension comes from not how he ends up, but how he got there. Really excellent read.

Another Vintage from Torday
"It was the fruit in the garden that turned, in the end, to ashes in my mouth."

Paul Torday's follow up to Salmon Fishing in the Yemen, shows him to be that rare author who can write literary prose that makes you want to stop and savour the flavours and yet can also weave a great story so that you end up wanting to glug back the book at the same time.

"I took a sip again and rolled the liquid around on my palate, to savour its complex flavours."

He also side-steps the pit that some other authors have recently fallen into with their "difficult" second book and delivered a cracking novel.

The Irresistible Inheritance of Wilberforce introduces Wilberforce, an intelligent software developer who has built up his own business, enjoying a bottle of 1982 Chateau Petrus (£3000 a bottle!)

'The sommelier took a step back - "The Chateau Petrus? Monsieur is quite certain?"'

and then pulls back the veil to reveal a man with little emotional intelligence about to self destruct.

How has he got to the point of death?
What changed in his life from years of working late at the office building up his company?

The answer is friendship.
And the answer is explored as Paul takes you back in time to unfold the tragic fall.

"Poor Wilberforce," she said. "You've no idea how to be a human being at all, have you?"

It is a book that is clever and has a heart and a charm that reminded me of why I love reading so much. If you like the experience of reading a book that pushes away the world around you and lulls you into its embrace, with only the smell and rustle of paper to remind you of your surroundings, then buy this now and enjoy.

"Do you ever have that feeling? Have you had that absolute sense of conviction: that after all, life is going to turn out really well for you?"

Highly readable entertainment
In 2006, Wilberforce is an alcoholic close to killing himself through his prolific wine consumption of four or five bottles a day. Regularly barred from the high-end restaurants he visits in search of the most exclusive and expensive vintages, Wilberforce does not appreciate that he is addicted; he views himself as a wine connoisseur, even when he wakes up in hospital from an alcohol-induced coma. From this engaging beginning, Paul Torday takes the reader back to three previous years of Wilberforce's life, in which we see the journey that transformed him from a young, successful businessman to a walking disaster area.

There are some darkly humorous moments in the novel, but for the most part, this is downbeat stuff. Whilst it is highly readable, a few things in the book don't quite convince; for example, the voice of Wilberforce as a man in his mid- to late thirties - even allowing for his decline and world-weariness, it's difficult to believe in the age Torday has given him. The fact that Wilberforce has a mystery family background and parentage, and that his first name is kept secret for much of the book, are curious asides that do little to add any sense of suspense or intrigue to what is essentially a tale of a messed-up life.

There are other problems. We don't get to know the Catherine character at all (although perhaps this is deliberate; she does not seem to have left an impression on Wilberforce as a truly real person, either). In addition, the book's opening chapters, in which Wilberforce gets inebriated on £3,000-a-bottle Pétrus before being forcibly ejected from his latest choice of eatery, and tries to find a way to obtain wine despite the attentions of a nurse hired in an effort to prevent him doing any more damage to himself, are significantly more entertaining than the couple of hundred pages that follow.

However, I thoroughly enjoyed this. The hints we are given of Wilberforce's mistakes and misapprehensions (and not just regarding his alcoholism) mean that there is a somewhat twisted pleasure to be had out of knowing more than the protagonist does. It is true that there is little plot to speak of, and that in telling the story backwards, Torday loses the book's early riotous momentum, as we spend time with a Wilberforce who is ever more sensible and considered in his behaviour. This was nonetheless, a fun read for me and on that basis it gets four stars, though I could probably pick some more holes in it if I wanted to.

It is Torday's characterisation of Ed Simmonds, a.k.a. Ed Hartlepool (Hartlepool being the title he will inherit) that is Torday's most believable creation in this novel. We don't see much of him, but Ed feels real; he lives and breathes a casually easy existence, something that eludes Wilberforce to the end - or rather, has eluded him from the beginning.