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Man-Eating Typewriter

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Man-Eating Typewriter

By: Richard Milward
Narrated by: Marc Graham, Richard Milward
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Summary

'We're all in the gutter but some of us are ogling the sparkles.'

Set at the fag-end of the 60s at the moment when Swinging London is starting to take on a darker hue in the wake of Charles Manson's murders, and framed as a novel within a novel published by a seedy Piccadilly-based publisher of pulp fiction, Man-Eating Typewriter is a homage to the great oulipo experiments in fiction.

It is the story of a psychopath called Raymond Novak and his untimely demise told entirely in 'polari' - a language developed and used mainly amongst the metropolitan homosexual community in the time when being gay was still a criminal offence.

From a love affair with a Barbary Ape on the Rock of Gibraltar to erotic cabaret in Paris and unreliable adventures with Madam Ovary, Raymond's mother in the bombed-out ruins of Blitzed London, Man-Eating Typewriter is an act of seductive sedition by a writer with unfathomable literary talent and chutzpah.

Wild, transgressive, erotic, offensive and resolutely uncompromising, this marks the return of a writer who is out there on an island of his own making; a book that will be talked about, celebrated and misunderstood for decades.

©2023 Richard Milward (P)2023 Orion Publishing Group Limited Dark Humour Fiction Genre Fiction Humorous Literary Fiction Literature & Fiction Satire Comedy Crime England
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Critic reviews

"A major talent." (Irvine Welsh)

"Remarkable, beautiful, magic. Like Ulysses for those who can't cope with reading Ulysses." (Paolo Hewitt)
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A brilliant Odyssey of filth, perversion and life beyond convention. At first, without consulting a polari dictionary, I understood little but enjoyed the Ulysses rhythm and Clockwork Orange cadence - but as you read on and find understanding in the context as words are repeated, I was equally in hypnotic with the tale of the crazed but brilliant, hilarious and quongless Novak.
The novel within the novel framework works perfectly and the second narrator - a publisher explaining their thoughts and investigations on each chapter they receive is expertly portrayed by Graham.
When i first read the review for this - I thought - no on the no - I fancy this not. However, this is the most unique use of language i have ever heard - as well as the best thing i have read/heard to be produced this century.

Genius.

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