While anger is unquestionably the energy of Sour Grapes, the resulting story is crammed with laughs. It seems entirely fitting that the writer who once named a novel after a Cheeky Girls lyric ( This is Life) should continue to subvert protocol when it comes to getting his stories out to his readers. Rhodes was impressed by their lack of a swanky London office. The new book is released by indie outfit Lightning Books. They are very concerned about who will come to their next dinner party.”
Rhodes says it is because the literary show is “run by a small clique of squares. I can’t think of a more cheeky rib-dig at publishing since Amanda Craig’s 1996 novel A Vicious Circle. I thought, ‘Well, if they can do it, why can’t I?’” “They all bring in cartoonish versions of celebs. “I grew up with the original Spitting Image, when it had a point, and things like Stella Street, South Park,” says Rhodes. Rhodes won’t be drawn on the startling similarities between literary personality Will Self and Selfram, but does add that a withering comment Self gave about the book – where he called it “woefully out of date” – was “in the style of the fictional Wilberforce Selfram, which I was gratified by”.Īnyone with a glancing knowledge of the book trade can have a lot of fun spotting other familiar characters among its cast, from ex-Hay Festival director Peter Florence to the former journalist Johann Hari. He goes on to wreak havoc throughout the Bottoms, correcting prose as he goes.
The sallow-cheeked Selfram treks from London on foot, and terrifies a local housekeeper by pulling a slug from his hair and eating it. This time, the bucolic idyll of Green Bottoms (and the various surrounding Bottoms) plays host to a book festival with an appearance by “occasional novelist” Wilberforce Selfram. In a brazen return to the scene of his previous literary heist, 2015’s When the Professor Got Stuck in the Snow – a rural farce featuring a godless academic called Professor Richard Dawkins getting stranded in a blizzard with a vicar – Rhodes turns his attention to another recognisable figure.
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