Half Way World

Faustina

A dramatised overview of the 2015 Quagga prize-winning novel *Who's Afraid of the Booker Prize?*

For Alistair Wye, assistant to ‘top’ novelist Marshall Zob, Zob makes just two mistakes. First, he plans a commemorative book celebrating the life and work of his dead mentor, John Andrew Glaze, whose theory of ‘literary time’ is of dubious philosophical pedigree. Second, Zob turns the whole literary world on its head through the size of advance he instructs his agent to negotiate for his latest, and most mediocre novel to date. 

Secretly Wye keeps a diary of Zob’s professional and private life. Comic, resolute, Wye stalks through its every page, scattering his pearls with an imperious hand, while an unsuspecting Zob ensures perfect conditions for the chronicles satire.

Set in the relatively safe remove of London’s beau monde in the early 1990s, *Who’s Afraid of the Booker Prize?* unremittingly debunks the phenomenon of literary celebrity. 

The plot revolves round a researcher working through an archive of computer discs, emails and faxes, and his own diary recording his reactions to life in proximity of bookish heavyweight Marshall Zob. It’s a roaring satire, in the best English comedic tradition.

In this overview you hear the voices of Gilly Anderson (narrator), and the author himself.

petercowlam