Bowie-fixated Firestarter in Murder Trial of the Century
Read all about it! We have, and it's a fiery debut from an exciting new author.
Andrew McGuinness, who graduated from the MA in Creative Writing at Canterbury Christ Church University, has published his debut novel A Portrait of the Arsonist as a Young Man.
How far would you go to live your dream? Would you lie? Hurt those
you love? Destroy a building? Kill a man? On the anniversary of his
brother's death, 25-year- old Ben Tippet’s dream of becoming famous
ends in a nightmare.
Abandoned
by his novelist lover and about to stand trial for arson and murder,
he writes his anarchic 'novel autobiography'.
A who’s who of
cultural icons, from Kafka to King Kong, Chaucer to Chekhov, Marlowe
to Mailer, Brando to Bowie, Proust to Presley, and the Wizard of Oz
to the White Cliffs of Dover - this darkly humorous debut is a
contemporary portrait of identity crisis and personality disorder; a
story of secrets, lies, love and a modern obsession with fame and
fortune.
This beautifully written, unputdownable novel lays bare a 21st
Century tale of celebrity-obsession, identity crisis and personality
disorder. Ben Tippet's "novel autobiography" is ostensibly a
self-portrait, but the arsonist's tale takes broader strokes,
painting the landscape of a contemporary world hooked on sex, fame
and fortune. Nuanced with literary and pop-cultural references, it
explores universal themes of love, loss, sex and death.
More information (including a link to the website dedicated to
the novel) and a very clever tease of a film-trailer for the novel
can be found by getting in touch with the author's dog, Tom, at
http://www.andrewmcguinness.blogspot.com/
