Fortune’s Bastard

“A spontaneous seduction prompts a surreal chain of events in this raucous new novel . . . This is a wry, writhing tale about the forces that shape our fate.” —Booklist   After his highly popular Who’s Who in Hell, Robert Chalmers delivers his second novel, a painfully funny story of disaster and redemption that recalls Katherine Dunn’s Geek Love.   One morning Edward Miller, tabloid newspaper editor and reactionary alpha male, spontaneously seduces his temp in an office storeroom. The news doesn’t take long to reach his cold, beautiful wife—and it just happens to be their anniversary. By morning, his marriage is over, his career in shambles, and his house is on fire. Clearly, it’s time to leave town.   After a brief stint in Spain as an English teacher, Miller flees again when his cover is blown, winding up in a Florida town populated by carnies and circus freaks and ruled with an iron fist by the Half Man, a criminal and sadist with no legs. Unexpectedly, despite even a one-eyed albino hit man who seems to overhear every compromising conversation between Miller and the Half Man’s wife the Lizard Woman, Miller gradually realizes this may be where he belongs.   A brilliant ensemble black comedy and a touching statement on the redemptive power of love, Fortune’s Bastard confirms Robert Chalmers as one of Britain’s freshest and wittiest new voices.   “A novel of wonderful surprises, an emotional see-saw that can be very funny, very sad and very brutal. This is a story about a love that shouldn’t work at all, but triumphs against the odds.” —Michael Palin, Monty Python alumnus

“A spontaneous seduction prompts a surreal chain of events in this raucous new novel . . . This is a wry, writhing tale about the forces that shape our fate.” —Booklist   After his highly popular Who’s Who in Hell, Robert Chalmers delivers his second novel, a painfully funny story of disaster and redemption that recalls Katherine Dunn’s Geek Love.   One morning Edward Miller, tabloid newspaper editor and reactionary alpha male, spontaneously seduces his temp in an office storeroom. The news doesn’t take long to reach his cold, beautiful wife—and it just happens to be their anniversary. By morning, his marriage is over, his career in shambles, and his house is on fire. Clearly, it’s time to leave town.   After a brief stint in Spain as an English teacher, Miller flees again when his cover is blown, winding up in a Florida town populated by carnies and circus freaks and ruled with an iron fist by the Half Man, a criminal and sadist with no legs. Unexpectedly, despite even a one-eyed albino hit man who seems to overhear every compromising conversation between Miller and the Half Man’s wife the Lizard Woman, Miller gradually realizes this may be where he belongs.   A brilliant ensemble black comedy and a touching statement on the redemptive power of love, Fortune’s Bastard confirms Robert Chalmers as one of Britain’s freshest and wittiest new voices.   “A novel of wonderful surprises, an emotional see-saw that can be very funny, very sad and very brutal. This is a story about a love that shouldn’t work at all, but triumphs against the odds.” —Michael Palin, Monty Python alumnus