The Book** Prize Winner Jonathan King 1997

Dustjacket synopsis:

"Elizabeth Regina churns out a never ending stream of romantic novels, with cardboard cut-out characters and cliched plots, which sell in their millions.

"She lives alone, except for the servants, rich as sin yet parsimonious to the core. But now, fifty-one, single, a teetotaller and still a virgin, Elizabeth has a dream. She yearns to be taken seriously by the literary establishment who dismiss her work as empty froth. Spurred on by the provocative barbed missiles hurled by her old friend and critic Kenneth Jenkins over the bread and butter pudding at Harvey Nichols, Elizabeth resolves to put an end to her safe, cosy, predictable lifestyle.

"But who could have predicted that literary success and passionate romance would enter her life for the first time courtesy of a gay crippled dwarf, half Moroccan, half Yorkshireman, with a name even Elizabeth couldn't have invented in one of her novels: Kirk Kurabbi?

"In the most original love story of the century, featuring two vulnerable and unconventional characters who find each other against all odds, Jonathan King lifts the lid off the hypocrisy of London's literary establishment in this delicious, entertaining and poignant novel that builds to a startling - and highly controversial - conclusion."

First Paragraph:

The bread and butter pudding was delicious in Harvey Nicks but he wasn't having any of it. He sipped his tepid tea. He prided himself on his powers of observation.

She was clearly a widow. Not divorced. No element of self-assurance. Fattish. Rounded. Elegant in a tasteless kind of way. That suit could have been made out of curtain material. The handbag was leather but probably Harrods. The shoes were polished but last year's model.

Talked a lot. Probably chattered her husband to death. One child. A boy - certainly gay. The way she gestured and dominated the room, she'd clearly mothered the poor lad to the point of sexual suffocation.

He was quite wrong, actually. Not only had she never been married - she'd never been kissed. Even at Roedean, whilst being quiteaccepted maongst the other girls, she had hardly been popular. Plain but pleasant; quite bright; strolled a lot along the bleak coast, gazing out at the grey, gloomy, turbulent sea, thinking about those romantic stories. Atop the tall white cliffs, as the seagulls wheeled and squealed, dreaming dreams about other characters, other lives, other loves. At dances, nobody had wanted to escort her on to the floor. She'd had friends but no passionate embraces.

From the Blake hardback edition, 1997.