Product Description

Brilliantly written and bitingly funny, Tom Sharpe's indefatigable hero is pitted against the vices of an aristocratic pervert, the merciless greed of a politician's wife and the seedy underbelly of Britain's medical facilities, deftly exposing the farcical realities of small-town England and America.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #94075 in Books
• Published on: 2005-04-07
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 320 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
One of the most impressive things about Wilt in Nowhere is that Tom Sharpe manages to go on being outrageous and funny after such a long career--after all, what does a satirist do when real world lifestyles and events exceed his wildest earlier inventions? The answer is, of course, that he just goes on making wonderful things up--this is the first novel about his quietly stroppy, lazy-as-hell college lecturer hero Wilt for 20 years, and Wilt is as funny in an era of e-mail and NHS cuts as he was back then.

There is also a gentle nostalgia in some of the writing here. Wilt's hike through the English countryside in early chapters has pastoral charm in patches as well as a sarcastic sense of rural dereliction. Sharpe's sense of rural American life is rather more broad-brush, but the damage inflicted on an obnoxious millionaire by Wilt's four terrifying daughters shows a sense of just how power works.

This is a gentler book than some of Sharpe's satires, but he still has all of his bitter irony intact; this is not the book of someone who has mellowed in later life. --Roz Kaveney

From the Publisher
Henry Wilt is back! In a major publishing event, one of Britain's finest living writers returns with his greatest creation.

About the Author
Tom Sharpe was born in 1928 and educated at Lancing College and Pembroke College, Cambridge. He did his National Service in the Marines before going to South Africa in 1951, where he did social work before teaching in Natal. He had a photographic studio in Pietermaritzburg from 1957 until 1961. From 1963 to 1972 he was a lecturer in History at the Cambridge College of Arts and Technology. In 1986 he was awarded the XXXIIIeme Grand Prix de l'Humour Noir Xavier Forneret. He divides his time between Cambridge and Spain.

Customer Reviews

RIP Wilt - alive but concussed
In a South Bank Show special about Tom Sharpe a couple of years ago, the great man was asked about his very slow output in recent years. Two problems were at the root: a serious heart condition and equally serious writer's block. Sharpe told Melvyn Bragg that he'd used his barbecue to burn about 1500 pages of text on the grounds that it didn't make him laugh. He also described his humour as "juvenile." Be that as it may, at his best Sharpe has been truly inspired, creating edgy mayhem and scream-out-loud laughter that few if any writer could match - consume and discard humourous literature par excellence.

So it's with heavy heart that I can confirm Sharpe's waning powers, based on the evidence presented by Wilt in Nowhere. The plotting devices and characterisations are as vivid as ever - Sharpe's instinct for farce is still as strong as ever. But the laughter is but a pale shadow of his finest achievements. The 1500 discarded pages must have made grim reading indeed if the final volume of Wilt's adventures is anything to go by.

The two separate plotlines - Eva and quads in the USA, Wilt on a walking tour and for much of the book in deep concussion, fails to add up to a coherent whole, and lacks much of the edge and sense of orchestrated debate displayed in earlier Wilt epics. If the moral of the tale is anywhere, Wilt in Nowhere says that taking an unambitious family holiday prevents chaos! Sharpe appears to said everything worth saying.

Furthermore, Wilt's arch adversary Inspector Flint has a comparatively minor role to play, though readers will be gratified to know his understanding of the Wilts is no greater now than ever before, albeit infinitely more advanced than his over-promoted peer, Hodge.

It's disappointing to see a once great writer well below his peak powers, and I wish Tom Sharpe a happy retirement. But I'd sooner remember him by earlier books, those that had me helpless with laughter.

Spark nearly dead
I normally do my reading in bad late at night. Some 20 years ago the bed shook regularly with laughter and giggles and my eyes frequently went out of focus through tears of mirth. As another reader says one dared not read Tom Sharpe on public transport for fear of uncontrollable fits of giggles. How I looked forward to the recent book after such a lengthy gap in time. But, such disappointment in the end. No uncontrollable giggles, no bursting guffaws, only a slight wimper of enjoyment and an occasional smile. Alas, all good things come to an end and history cannot be repeated. Wilt is dead, long live...... no, Wilt is dead.

Wilt wilting.................
As a fan of Tom Sharpe, and the Wilt books in particular, I looked foward to this book. It raised a few smiles, but it is no where near the level of previous Wilt novels. Really it was like wandering down memory lane with an old friend, talking about the good old days.

I'd really only recommended it it if you've already read the previous books, and the original 'Wilt' in particular.