I would like to nominate
Martin Amis' new novel
Lionel Asbo, partly because I haven't read one of his for a while, despite being one of my favourite authors once upon a time, and would like to.
Quote:
Lionel Asbo - a very violent but not very successful young criminal - is going about his morning duties in a London prison when he learns that he has just won £139,999,999.50 on the National Lottery. This is not necessarily good news for his ward and nephew, the orphaned Des Pepperdine, who still has reason to fear his uncle's implacable vengeance.
Savage, funny, and mysteriously poignant, Lionel Asbo is a modern fairytale from one of the world's great writers. It's a dark comedic look at the vicissitudes of fame and fortune in a United Kingdom that is but a pale shadow of its former imperial past. Amis' novel is a hilarious comedy of errors which pokes fun at class distinctions, even as Amis offers readers sympathetic, if rather flawed, characters like his main protagonist, Lionel Asbo (who has legally changed his name to ASBO; "Anti-Social Behavioural Order"), whom we encounter as he finds himself the unexpected recipient of financial good fortune, newly released from prison, and vows to turn his life around, by pursuing "anger management therapy". Lionel is a veritable force-of-nature, whose larger than life persona stands in stark contrast to his decent, honest nephew Desmond, or "Des", whose sole major vice is a sexually charged, romantic relationship with his thirty nine-year old grandmother - and Lionel's mother - Granny Grace.
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