Bed A Novel

Now in paperback, David Whitehouse's "ingenious" ( The New York Times), "deeply affecting" ( People) and award-winning debut novel about two brothers, obesity, celebrity, and the redemptive power of love. Mal Ede, a child of untamed manners and unbounded curiosity, is the eccentric eldest son of an otherwise typical middle-class family. But as the wonders of childhood fade into the responsibilities of adulthood, Mal's spirits fade too. On his twenty-fifth birthday, disillusioned, Mal goes to bedback to his childhood bedand never emerges again. What follows is a metamorphosis of extreme proportions: immobility and a gargantuan appetite combine, over the course of two decades, to make Mal the fattest man in the world. Despite his seclusion, Mal's condition earns him worldwide notoriety and a cult of followers convinced he is making an important statement about modern life. But as these followers elevate Mal to the role of unlikely hero, his actions will also change the lives of his haunted parents; his dutiful brother, our narrat∨ and the woman they both love, Lou. In Bed, David Whitehouse has put a magnifying glass on contemporary society. Published in more than a dozen countries around the world, this "momentous" ( The Bookseller) debut has been hailed as "a kind of suburban equivalent of Wuthering Heights" and its author as "the next Martin Amis" ( Maclean's).

David Whitehouse was born in 1981 in Nuneaton, England. Bed was the winner of the inaugural “To Hell with Prizes Award” at the 2010 London Book Fair. Currently editor-at-large at Shortlist magazine, Whitehouse lives in London.