Clive Sinclair's first collection of stories won the Somerset Maugham Award. His second was short-listed for the inaugural Dylan Thomas Award. His third won both the PEN Silver Pen, and the Jewish Quarterly Award. This is his fourth. The new stories range from New Orleans and Texas, to Peru, Venice, and Jerusalem. Their subjects are loss, the fear of loss, and love, most especially that between husbands and wives, fathers and sons. Their cast includes the quick and the dead, the real and the imagined: Davy Crockett, Kinky Friedman, Captain Haddock, Princess Diana, and Shylock. They are as cruel as life, and as funny. “I think you're a fine practitioner of the short story indeed. If some of such work is to be published in America in book form, ask the publishers to send me a copy. I'd be delighted to give you a blurb.” Norman Mailer “I found Hearts of Gold quite wonderful… And all this despite my immense dislike for football, cunts and national movements of any kind. So it had to be a very good book … and it was.” Sir Angus Wilson “I have reread the Laptop story. It is truly wonderful. Almost every sentence a surprise. Stuck in a rut as I am at the moment it's hard not to turn green with envy at the sight of such seemingly effortless prose. I don't think I have ever seen anyone performing comical tricks so high up in the air.” WG Sebald “Witty, playful and magnificently compassionate.” Kazuo Ishiguro [on The Lady with the Laptop] Sunday Times, Books of the Year “This outstanding collection [The Lady with the Laptop] should consolidate Clive Sinclair's reputation as one of the most inventive writers working in the form today.” Elizabeth Lowry Times Literary Supplement
