- Paperback: 160 pages
- Publisher: Penguin; New Ed edition (29 Aug 2002)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0140290133
- ISBN-13: 978-0140290134
- Product Dimensions: 19.9 x 12.9 x 1.2 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 81,240 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
Home Truths: a Novella
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Product Description
Amazon.co.uk Review
Adrian Ludlow was "the white hope of the English novel once", his first effort, Hideaway, a searing exposé of adolescent angst. But now Hideaway is an A-level set text, and Adrian "stagnates", compiling the Paragon Book of Whatever's Been Commissioned, in unromantic seclusion with wife Eleanor in a cottage under a Gatwick flightpath. Their quiet life is cruelly disturbed when college friend Sam Sharp re-enters their life. A prolific and successful scriptwriter ("three BAFTAs, two Royal Television Society Awards, one Emmy, one Silver Nymph, one Golden Turd from Luxembourg"), Sam is now reeling from being "shat on from a great height by a bilious bird of prey", his treatment at the hands of The Sentinel on Sunday's celebrity interviewer Fanny Tarrant. It's not long before Sam and Adrian have invented a scheme to get even with Fanny, but in executing it, they only end up revealing more than anyone wants about the college threesome's complex history.
Based on his 1998 play, Lodge's novella is, in truth, little more than a slim script with some rather full stage directions. It's mildly diverting trying to pin down "educated estuary" Fanny to aspects of Lynn Barber and Julie Burchill, and there are a few thoughtful observations on the art of interview and "the culture of gossip", but what makes this of more than passing interest is its early treatment of the real news story of summer 1997--Diana and Dodi. That inevitably makes Home Truths impossibly dated, but it also provides its most telling statement on the fleeting phantom that is celebrity. --Alan Stewart --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.
Product Description
David Lodge's extended novella is a delicious contemporary comedy on the perils of celebrity. It concerns a plot for revenge hatched by two writers, Adrian, a distinguished novelist seeking obscurity in a cottage near Gatwick and Sam, a successful scriptwriter who drops in on his old university friend en route to LA. The object of their revenge is one of the new breed of Rottweiler interviewers, a young woman who writes vicious profiles for a paper and who has just published a particularly nasty profile of Sam. Naturally, it all goes completely wrong.
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First Sentence
The cottage stands all on its own at the end of a rutted cart-track that leads off from the main road to the village, about a mile away. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
The cottage stands all on its own at the end of a rutted cart-track that leads off from the main road to the village, about a mile away. Read the first page
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
A home truth is a wounding mention of a person's weakness. In his Home Truths, novelist David Lodge does not leave any character's weakness unturned. Each has to confront a flaw or a mistake of the past, and no one escapes unscathed by his or her choices.
Lodge based Home Truths on his play of the same title, and at times his scenic descriptions sound a bit like stage directions. The upside of this theatrical tendency is Lodge's ability to reveal his characters through dialogue and action. He seldom tells the reader about his characters, opting instead to let them show their personalities through what they say and what they do.
Adrian Ludlow is a novelist who has stopped writing, save for his work on anthologies. He is living in an isolated Sussex, England, cottage with his wife, Eleanor, when their college friend Sam Sharp comes back into their lives. Sam is a successful screenwriter whose reputation has been attacked by newspaper interviewer Fanny Tarrant. The columnist is young, ambitious, bitter, and known for devouring men like Sam for breakfast.
The outraged Sam fears that his public image will be tarnished by the unflattering column and asks Adrian to help him get revenge on Fanny. For Adrian, this means stepping back into the spotlight and giving up his cherished privacy. At first, Adrian's wife is a supportive spouse, serving as his voice of reason. Soon, the reader learns that Eleanor has home truths as well, ones she did not expect to surface in the war Adrian and Sam attempt to wage on Fanny.
"The thing is," Sam says, "to find her weak point, her Achilles heel, her guilty secret." When Adrian replies that she might not have one, Sam replies, "Everybody's got one." As in a Greek tragedy, Lodge finds his characters' hamartia, or flaw, and plays it up until the man or woman breaks down as a result. Home Truths explores celebrity, notoriety, and the demands of writing with satiric wit. The fast-paced prose and sharp observations throw the reader into the world of the self-centered and self-conscious, the worldly and the gullible, the famous and the infamous. What does celebrity mean to a writer, and what price is the writer willing to pay to achieve it or avoid it? Lodge delves deep into his characters to answer these questions, and the result is a fun and engaging read.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
A short and entertaining read which does have a serious meditation on the problems of celebrity, particularly expressed in the discussion of Princess Diana. There are some particularly good jokes about modern culture generally - the joke about Damien Hirst for example. My advice to other readers however is that it is only a small book - wonderful for a laugh, but perhaps only really for the true Lodge enthusiast.
Format:Paperback
Adrian is a distinguished former novelist with a novel on the A-level set text list. His best friend Sam is a successful screenwriter hoping to break into Hollywood. When one of the new breed of journo-interviewers does a hatchet job on Sam, the two men plot to get their own back on her - but as you might guess it was never going to go to plan!
A witty novella satirising the cult of celebrity and the insecurity of writing for a living. Adapted from a play, it rattles along for its 115 pages piling on the layers of humiliation for all four involved (Adrian, his wife Ellie, Sam and Fanny - the journalist), until reaching its climax on a day we will all remember. As an adaption of a play it is very dialogue driven, but that allows Lodge's wit to sparkle all the more.
A witty novella satirising the cult of celebrity and the insecurity of writing for a living. Adapted from a play, it rattles along for its 115 pages piling on the layers of humiliation for all four involved (Adrian, his wife Ellie, Sam and Fanny - the journalist), until reaching its climax on a day we will all remember. As an adaption of a play it is very dialogue driven, but that allows Lodge's wit to sparkle all the more.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
open wider please
This is a rather slight addition to David Lodge's long and impressive fiction list. All he has done, really, is extend the text of the play that appeared in the West End. Read more
Published on 25 Nov 1999 by lawrences@eggconnect.net
NO SWELLER NOVELLA
I'd thought of going with 'Literary Genius pens Bijou Masterpiece' for my heading, but moving to the States has added a kamikaze recklessness to my appreciation of the grotesquely... Read more
Published on 24 Nov 1999
A writer's view of writing
I was disappointed when I realised that this book is the script for a play. However, I was pleasantly surprised at how easy it was to visualise the scenes. Read more
Published on 4 Aug 1999
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