The Unspeakable Skipton

From the prolifically gifted Pamela Hansford Johnson, neglected peer of Evelyn Waugh and Muriel Spark, comes “a maliciously witty account of literary skulduggery and lofty pretensions, set in Johnson’s beloved Bruges.” (The Telegraph) It’s not easy being a genius. Just ask Daniel Skipton, the greatest—or, let us say, the most under-recognized—novelist of his generation. Skipton is only a few revisions away from finishing his masterpiece: a satire of literary London that will humiliate his enemies and make him as famous, and as rich, as he deserves. Yet, in the meantime, he is forced to scrape by in obscurity and self-imposed exile amid the deserted canals of Bruges, barely surviving on a regimen of blackmail, bullying, persistence, and native charm. One afternoon at a local cafe, he encounters the acclaimed playwright Dorothy Merlin and her entourage—worldly tourists on the lookout for erotic