Synopsis:
Ben Hampton is a bestselling and beloved London writer and famous football supporter, standard bearer of the modern British pop novel. For the first time in a brilliantly rising career, Ben learns that tackling a book about a living person is more excruciating than creating his own characters.
Julius Novak is Ben’s new literary subject, the ex-footballer who once toiled for the club Hampton has passionately supported since childhood.
Marianne Papineau is the sexy but serious sculptor who was once Novak’s lover. All three seem content, near the top of their chosen profession, until foisted upon one another by a disorganized but exuberantly ambitious literary agent barely treading water in her own field.
Rosalie McMahon, after raising a family, has reentered the London book world but harbors fears that a much-yearned-for fulfillment lies beyond her grasp. Her discovery of the long-since-discovered, famous author just might deliver the breakthrough she covets, but Ben may ruin everything by pursuing a bittersweet love story instead of the expected sequel to his breakthrough soccer memoir.
Standing between Rosalie and success are a phalanx of motivated stakeholders from the arcane and labyrinthine UK publishing world. The steepest hurdle of all is Ben’s entrenched artistic commitment to the novel form.
Filled with allusions to pop culture, film, literature, music and art, and inspired by the styles of Anthony Powell, William Boyd and Nick Hornby, "Hampton From the Halfway Line" flows from the altstadt of Cologne, the boulevards of the 14th arrondissement and the great football stadiums of Europe, through the din of London, the rambling limestone walls of the Cotswolds and into the teeming streets of downtown Manhattan and the green hills of Vermont.
In this charming, direct and compassionate novel, Ben Hampton can finally put the ghost of Nayim to rest with his own 50-yard Garryowen.
Marianne Papineau is the sexy but serious sculptor who was once Novak’s lover. All three seem content, near the top of their chosen profession, until foisted upon one another by a disorganized but exuberantly ambitious literary agent barely treading water in her own field.
Rosalie McMahon, after raising a family, has reentered the London book world but harbors fears that a much-yearned-for fulfillment lies beyond her grasp. Her discovery of the long-since-discovered, famous author just might deliver the breakthrough she covets, but Ben may ruin everything by pursuing a bittersweet love story instead of the expected sequel to his breakthrough soccer memoir.
Standing between Rosalie and success are a phalanx of motivated stakeholders from the arcane and labyrinthine UK publishing world. The steepest hurdle of all is Ben’s entrenched artistic commitment to the novel form.
Filled with allusions to pop culture, film, literature, music and art, and inspired by the styles of Anthony Powell, William Boyd and Nick Hornby, "Hampton From the Halfway Line" flows from the altstadt of Cologne, the boulevards of the 14th arrondissement and the great football stadiums of Europe, through the din of London, the rambling limestone walls of the Cotswolds and into the teeming streets of downtown Manhattan and the green hills of Vermont.
In this charming, direct and compassionate novel, Ben Hampton can finally put the ghost of Nayim to rest with his own 50-yard Garryowen.
... stay tuned for Chapter 1
