The Art of Failing

An Observer book of the year

HAUNTED! By endless tiny humiliations.

STRUGGLING! To resurrect the corpse of his literary career.

ENSNARED! In a loving yet bamboozling marriage.

A man at odds with the universe, Anthony McGowan stumbles from one improbable fiasco to the next. On the mean streets of West Hampstead he reflects upon all that is at the heart of life itself – socks with holes, underwhelming packed lunches, broken washing machines, Kierkegaard, liver salts, British Library eccentricities and disapproving ladies on trains. In this chronicle of one man’s daily failures and disappointments, McGowan can’t help but speak his mind – with cringeworthy and hilarious results.

Anthony McGowan worked as a nightclub bouncer, civil servant and Open University tutor before he became an award-winning YA author. His The Knife that Killed Me became a film in 2013. He lives in Camden, north-west London, with his wife and two children. His latest novel for teenagers, Rook, was shortlisted for the prestigious CILIP Carnegie Medal.