WITH ONE LOUSY FREE PACKET OF SEED - Softcover

Truss

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0007355289 ISBN 13: 9780007355280

Publisher: Fourth Estate, 2010

Synopsis

Lynne Truss's first novel, in which she shows herself to be one of the very best comic writers.

'It was nobody's fault, this widely held assumption that “Come Into the Garden” had long since sought eternal peace in the great magazine rack in the sky. Nevertheless, it required strength of character for those intimately acquainted with the title not to take the comments personally. After all, it was a bit like being dead but not lying down'.

Osborne Lonsdale, a down-at-heel journalist, mysteriously attractive to women, writes a regular celebrity interview for ‘Come Into the Garden’. This week his 'Me and My Shed' column will be based on the charming garden outhouse owned by TV sitcom star Angela Farmer. Unbeknown to Osborne, driving down to Devon to interview Angela in her country retreat, the sleepy magazine has been taken over by new management. So it happens that Osborne's research trip is interrupted by a trainload of anxious hacks from London - Lillian the fluffy blonde secretary, Michelle the sub-editor who has a secret crush on Osborne, and Trent Carmichael, crime novelist and bestselling author of S is for... Secateurs!

About this title

Review:

With One Lousy Packet of Seed is Lynne Truss's splendidly malicious novel about contemporary celebrity journalism and its intrusiveness. Much of the plot has to do with the attempt to find something new to say about garden sheds by Osborne, a writer who has done so many profiles that famous people have started to blend into each other in his mind--Truss is often at her funniest when her characters get closest to being entirely deranged. Osborne is one of the regular contributors to a small gardening magazine on its last legs--Come into the Garden has a staff almost entirely made up of obsessives of one kind or another, and Truss gets to settle a lot of personal scores with sub-editors and researchers.

Much of the book is also a vicious but genteel hatchet-job on the cosy British crime thriller's casual snobbery--the escalation of mistaken identities and occasional violence heads off into the darkest of dark comedy. Truss is also capable of being charmingly erotic and rather touching--With One Lousy Packet of Seed has a satirical edge and a humane side that balance it neatly. --Roz Kaveney

Review:

'Lynne Truss has written a perfect comic novel' Daily Telegraph

'This book will become a perennial comic delight... this Truss must never be stopped' Sue Limb

‘Hilarious... as witty as a knot garden... Lots of good jokes. I loved it' The Times

About this edition

• Publisher: Fourth Estate
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 0007355289
• ISBN 13: 9780007355280
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 224