Episode 1222: Hamish Hamilton's New Wunderkind?

Just got back from the annual SingSoc CNY Dinner, which was actually held in the same restaurant in Birmingham as last year's dinner. Sat in front of this really bitchy guy on the way back, which made for quite an amusing coach ride, I guess. Anyway, my review copy of Noughties, Ben Masters's debut from Hamish Hamilton, has arrived. The guy's 25, a good-looking chap, educated at Oxford and Cambridge, and his signing by Hamish Hamilton seems like it was quite a big thing. It's practically like he was designed in some laboratory to induce literary envy. (Come on, even his name feels perfectly suited for the job. Sort of like how I think regardless of how you feel about Lana Del Rey and whether or not she's 'authentic', you have to admit whoever coined her new moniker was a marketing genius.) Kind of reminds me of the buzz about Adam O'Riordan, who'd be the equivalent in the world of poetry, I suppose. The thing is though, I really like the excerpt his publicist has put on the press release accompanying the review copy, and if the rest of the novel reads like that, I'm completely sold on the novel. I do wonder if it might be the sort of novel that only really appeals to fellow English graduates, so it's definitely something I'll address one way or another in my review for The Cadaverine.