PETER SMART’S CONFESSIONS - Softcover

Bailey, Paul

3.33

33 ratings by Goodreads

9780007292776: PETER SMART’S CONFESSIONS

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0007292775 ISBN 13: 9780007292776

Publisher: Fourth Estate, 2008

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The eponymous hero of Peter Smart's Confessions, an unhappy husband and none-too-successful actor, is writing after a suicide attempt. Peter's mother, as an actor friend enthusiastically points out, is a comic monster: 'If you put her in a book -- as they say -- no one would believe her? Only Wagner could do her justice.' She's matched by the larger-than-life eccentric, F. Leonard Cottle, randy retired doctor and author of 'With Stethoscope and Scalpel', who employs Peter's mother as housekeeper after her husband dies. Cottle introduces the boy Peter to the facts of life. There are some bravura-satirical set pieces on playwrights, players and critics: the staging and reception of a 'revolutionary' production of Hamlet based on the premise that he was suffering from congenital syphilis, a pointed parody of Eliot's The Cocktail Party.

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Review:

The characters have a true vitality in their grotesqueness, and no book is pointless which reminds us of the infinite variety of human experience.
Auberon Waugh, Evening Standard

The mother in Paul Bailey’s novel is awful enough to be able to bat for England for meanness.
Sunday Times

The use of dialogue is especially brilliant and even recalls Henry Green.
Financial Times

From the Back Cover:

After a suicide attempt, unhappy husband and failing actor Peter Smart takes to writing. Peter's mother, as an actor friend enthusiastically points out, is a comic monster: 'If you put her in a book – as they say – no one would believe her... Only Wagner could do her justice.' She's matched by the larger-than-life eccentric, F. Leonard Cottle, randy retired doctor and author of 'With Stethoscope and Scalpel', who employs Peter's mother as housekeeper after her husband dies. Cottle introduces the boy Peter to the facts of life.

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