Product Description

The first bullet entered the body of my ex-girlfriend - gorgeous, slightly-famous Lily - two inches beneath her left breast. We were sitting at a table in Le Corbusier, Frith Street, Soho. As the first bullet went into her, I turned to look at the gunman. Wearing Day-Glo Lycra, a helmet, mirror shades and a pollution-mask - just like a bike courier - he had a black and silver gun in his hand. And he was shooting the woman I still loved...

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #329724 in Books
• Published on: 2000-09-28
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 384 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
Toby Litt's third book is all bullet entry wounds, violent emotion and forensic detail. Corpsing works as a deconstructed literary thriller, a very knowing examination of the pathology of the genre. It starts off in the traditional way, with a death. Jean Luc Godard said 'all you need for a good story is a girl and a gun.' In Corpsing the girl is Lily, a beautiful actress and the ex-girlfriend of Conrad, the narrator. The gun is in the hands of an assassin, dressed in bike courier clothing who looks like "a vision of the future--a future where everyone is concerned with keeping their bodies fit and dodging between fast new technologies of damage." He fires at Lily and Conrad as they eat dinner at fashionable Le Corbusier, a restaurant which resembles an autopsy room in the morgue: "the tables are a frosty-looking aluminium, the walls are half mirror, half stainless steel". Six bullets later and the damage is done, Lily is dead and Conrad is nearly so.

The dissection really begins when Conrad comes out of hospital and begins investigating Lily's murder, his own near miss. The plot unfolds in short, sharp chapters, keen as knives. Toby Litt uses Conrad to provide an extra twist to the usual serpentine story. He has a morbid interest in the clinical details of the results of his injuries. He, like Litt, is very aware of the etiquette of cool violence, a cultural culling that takes in J F K succumbing to the "magic bullet", Bonnie and Clyde, The Godfather, and, of course, Reservoir Dogs. Corpsing is an interesting critique of our fondness for violence and death as entertainment, while cunningly providing us with all the gory details, the damage done. Clever, but a little soulless. --Eithne Farry

From the Publisher
CORPSING HAS ALREADY WON HUGE ACCLAIM
'Toby Litt is a really good writer. He will have you speeding through his latest - a noirish tale of murder, sex, revenge and adultery.' Time Out

'A thriller for our times, modern, sexy, full of twists and wickedly funny. Litt takes no hostages and he writes brilliantly...Corpsing is impressive.' Daily Mail

'a great evening in. Open the Chardonnay and let Litt take you on a thrilling ride from his Mortlake flat to the gents of a gangster pub in Bermondsey.' Observer

'Litt, one of the foremost young lions of British hip-lit, has a genuine appetite for pulp, and pulls off a remarkable crime debut which puts many veteran crimesters to shame...Corpsing has all the hallmarks of a cult book.' Guardian

'The screen rights to this devastatingly enjoyable novel have already been sold, and I cannot wait for the movie (Ewan McGregor and Jane Horrocks are my nominees for the roles.)' Daily Telegraph

'A chic, sharp shock of a thriller.' She

'Imaginative, eloquent and with an ear for the nuances of life, Toby Litt has produced a genuine page-turner of a thriller.' Daily Mirror

About the Author
Toby Litt was born in 1968. He grew up in Ampthill, Bedfordshire. His first two books were a short-story collection, ADVENTURES IN CAPITALISM, and a novel, BEATNIKS.

Customer Reviews

Copsing (nearly) corpses
This is a book of three thirds. The first third is well-written, leisurely in pace, attentive to detail and sustains the interest. The second third feels rushed, with little care given to fleshing out some secondary characters (Lawrence and criminal comedy-stylist Smart come to mind), leaving the reader with cliched caricatures and pedestrian narrative and dialogue that on occasion reminded me of a 15 year-old's self-indulgent attempt at "serious" writing ("He put on the album "In Utero" by the rock band Nirvana", grated particularly).
The final third goes a little way towards redemption, as the writing becomes tighter and Litt burrows deeper and deeper into Dead Lily's psyche, presenting us finally with the image of a totally inept human being.
And the ending? Faintly ludicrous but better than I'd anticipated.

readable but runs of of ideas, and grinds to an ending
The first thrid of the book was excellent, some great devices, and ideas indeed shaping up nicely as a five star book. unfortunately this is where we stop, no new ideas seem to crop up in the second half and the book loses direction and momentum, although still readable, its a shame the pace lets up, and really everything is just padding until the unfortunately predictable and predicted end.
to spend the last chapter having another character try to limply explain away what the story hasnt adequately dealt with, badly. was a let down.
the need to name each street in London that the story crosses and various shops and bars seems a bit unneccessary.

hmmmm
Others are correct in praising the book's first act; the writing is quick, with lots of short chapters, elegant and full of ideas. Plenty of action, very imaginative. From there it is largely downhill; aside from a few well targetted, stand-up-comic-style riffs on deserving topics such as the RSC and the dress sense of menopausal women, it largely fails to hold the attention so effectively grabbed at the beginning. Characters, aside from the central character, are largely two-dimensional stereotypes (the hood, the aging actress, the teenager) which, while effectively observed, are neither particularly credible or interesting. This would matter less if the plot worked. It doesn't. The attempts to drop red-herrings are fairly risible, and suddenly leave Litt with a huge amount of exposition to cram into the final five pages, by the end one senses that he is as tired of telling the story as I was reading it. A shame, because several of his other books (eg: deadkidsongs)are excellent, and had left me expecting more from from a genuinely gifted writer.