Word Monkey - by Christopher Fowler (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

This is the memoir Christopher Fowler always wanted to write about 'writing'.

It's the story of how a young bookworm growing up in a house where there was nothing to read but knitting pamphlets and motorcycle manuals became a writer - a 'word monkey' - and pursued a sort of career in popular fiction. And it's a book full of brilliant insights into the pleasures and pitfalls of his profession, dos and don'ts for would-be writers, and astute observations on favourite (and not-so-favourite) novelists.

But woven into this hugely entertaining and inspiring reflection on a literary life is an altogether darker thread. In Spring 2020, just as the world went into lockdown, Chris was diagnosed with terminal cancer. And yet there is nothing of the misery memoir about Word Monkey. Past and present intermingle as, in prose as light as air, he relates with wry humour and remarkable honesty what he knows will be the final chapter in his story.

Deeply moving, insightful and surprisingly funny, this is Christopher Fowler's life-affirming account of coming to terms with his own mortality.

'A remarkable book by a remarkable writer: amazingly entertaining and informative and also, for obvious reasons, one of the most moving.' SIMON MASON, author of the DI Wilkins Mysteries

'Wonderful . . . there is no bitterness here, but a hearty celebration of how art defines a life, with dark humour on the right occasions and the deliberate aim to leave a positive message . . . his enthusiasm is infectious and sobering when you are aware that he was dying as he wrote these pages.' Maxim Jacubowski, CRIME TIME

Review Quotes

Clever, wise, heartbreaking and yet also life-affirmingly funny: his literary comic lightness of touch is on a par with Wodehouse.--JOANNE HARRIS, bestselling author of Broken Light and Chocolat

A delight to read - a glorious, witty and life-affirming ragbag of autobiography, cultural commentary and hard-won wisdom about the strange and miraculous craft of writing. It's the sort of book that makes you want to underline every other sentence. Beautifully written, of course - one would expect no less from Chris - and characterised by its complete lack of self-pity. I hope it sells by the truckload. --ANDREW TAYLOR, bestselling author of The Shadows of London

A delight: perceptive, wise and illuminating on the act of reading (no genre held terrors for him) and, equally, the act of writing. All of this in a book full of disarmingly sardonic gallows humour about his own impending death. An unmissable farewell from the much missed author.--Barry Forshaw, FINANCIAL TIMES

A remarkable book by a remarkable writer: amazingly entertaining and informative and also, for obvious reasons, one of the most moving.--SIMON MASON, author of the DI Wilkins Mysteries

Not a hint of Pollyanna here, just the most hilarious, life-affirming book you'll read this year.--SAGA magazine

Wonderful . . . there is no bitterness here, but a hearty celebration of how art defines a life, with dark humour on the right occasions and the deliberate aim to leave a positive message, from the adoration of Dickens to the guilty pleasures of terrible horror movies . . . he was a man with a deeply-felt love (and I don't use the word lightly) for the arts, both minor and major, and his enthusiasm is infectious and sobering when you are aware that he was dying as he wrote these pages.--Maxim Jacubowski, CRIME TIME

Peppered throughout with a wit and wisdom that makes every page turn . . . seek him out and discover what a fine talent the world has lost.--STARBURST

Funny and poignant, Word Monkey is full of fascinating insights and is more than just a first-rate memoir . . . a fitting memorial to a terrific writer.--MARTIN EDWARDS

Funny and moving.--Laura Wilson, GUARDIAN, Best Crime and Thrillers of 2023

About the Author

Christopher Fowler was the multiple award-winning author of almost 50 novels and short story collections, including the celebrated Bryant & May mysteries. His other novels include Roofworld, Spanky, The Sand Men and Hot Water. He has also written two acclaimed memoirs, Paperboy (winner of the Green Carnation Prize) and Film Freak, plus The Book of Forgotten Authors and Peculiar London, Bryant and May's singular and eccentric guide to the city. In 2015, Chris was awarded the Crime Writers Association's coveted 'Dagger in the Library' for his body of work. He lived in London and Barcelona. Diagnosed with cancer just as the UK went into lockdown in 2020, Chris died in 2023.