King of the Badgers: A Novel - Hardcover

Hensher, Philip

3.37

770 ratings by Goodreads

9780865478633: King of the Badgers: A Novel

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0865478635 ISBN 13: 9780865478633

Publisher: Faber & Faber, 2011

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A Washington Post Notable Fiction Book for 2011

One of The Telegraph’s Best Fiction Books 2011

Far from London’s crime and pollution, Hanmouth’s wealthier residents live in picturesque, heavily mortgaged cottages in the center of a town packed with artisanal cheese shops and antiques stores. They’re reminded of the town’s less desirable outskirts—with their grim, flimsy housing stock and chain stores—only when their neighbors have the presumption to claim also to live in Hanmouth.

When an eight-year-old girl from the outer area goes missing, England’s eyes suddenly turn toward the sleepy town with a curiosity as piercing and unblinking as the closed-circuit security cameras that line Hanmouth’s idyllic streets. But somehow these cameras have missed the abduction of the girl, whose name is China. Is her blank-eyed hairdresser mother hiding her as part of a moneymaking hoax? Has she been abducted by one of the lurking perverts the townspeople imagine the cameras are protecting them from? Perhaps more cameras are needed?

As it turns out, more than one resident of Hanmouth has a secret hidden behind closed doors. There’s Sam and Harry, the cheesemonger and aristocrat who lead the county’s gay orgies. The quiet husband of postcolonial theorist Miranda (everyone agrees she’s marvelous) keeps a male lover, while their daughter disembowels dolls she’s named Child Pornography and Slightly Jewish. Moral crusader John Calvin’s Neighborhood Watch has an unusual reason for holding its meetings in secret. And, of course, somewhere out there is the house where little China is hidden.

With the dark hilarity and unflinching honesty of a modern-day Middlemarch, King of the Badgers demolishes the already fragile privacy of Hanmouth’s inhabitants. These characters, exquisitely drawn and rawly human, proclaim Philip Hensher’s status as an extraordinary chronicler of the domestic, and one of the world’s most dazzling and ambitious novelists.

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Review:

Praise for The Northern Clemency:

'Hensher is an anatomist of familial tensions and marshals his large cast of characters deftly. He has an impeccable eye for nuances of character and setting, and the details of Seventies food and d�cor are lovingly done: the mushroom vol-au-vents, the white wall units with brown smoked glass...an engaging and hugely impressive novel.' The Times

'The Northern Clemency - vast, compendious, wearing its ambition like an outsize boutonniere - makes a virtue of its exactness, its recapitulative zeal, its absolute determination to jam everything in and sit unshiftably on the lid.' Independent on Sunday

'Hensher has a forensic eye for detail, providing nightmarish glimpses of the everyday...engrossing, amusing and moving.' Independent

'An epic novel.' Guardian

'Hensher is fascinating good on how social transformation manifests itself in the textures, colours and manners of a culture...extremely funny, but also deeply humane.' The Sunday Times.

A remarkable novel...Hensher's technique of shifting continually from voice to voice, the third-person narrative perceived from the viewpoint of each character in turn, gives a cumulative effect of luminous richness, like a perfect piece of orchestration...but there is something more than brilliant cleverness that makes this novel extraordinary.' Sunday Times

'Hensher's is a bold, impressively sustained attempt to mark a transitional phase in modern Englishness as seen largely from the domestic sphere.' TLS

'A beautifully written book...as impressive in its scope as in the effortless artistry of the language. Its characters are well–defined and plausible, while the narrative is leavened with deftly observed humour that gently pokes its lower–middle class protagonists in the ribs.' Scotland on Sunday

About the Author:

Philip Hensher is a British novelist, critic, and journalist. He writes for The Guardian and The Independent and teaches creative writing at the University of Exeter. His sixth novel, The Northern Clemency, was short-listed for the 2008 Man Booker Prize.

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