This is a slickly written farce of mistaken identity set on a sun-drenched Greek Island which is hosting a ‘scientific conference’. In a recent Guardian interview Michael said of the book ‘'It had been in my mind for a while. Every time I arrived at an airport and saw the line of people holding up cards, I thought: "What would happen if I went up to one of them? How far would I get?".
Witty, laugh out loud funny and just a delicious treat, this book is not to be missed.
On the sunlit Greek island of Skios, the Fred Toppler Foundation's annual lecture is to be given by Dr Norman Wilfred, the world-famous authority on the scientific organisation of science. He turns out to be surprisingly young and charming - not at all the intimidating figure they had been expecting. The Foundation's guests are soon eating out of his hand. So, even sooner, is Nikki, the attractive and efficient organiser. Meanwhile, in a remote villa at the other end of the island, Nikki's old school-friend Georgie waits for the notorious chancer she has rashly agreed to go on holiday with, and who has only too characteristically failed to turn up. Trapped in the villa with her, by an unfortunate chain of misadventure, is a balding old gent called Dr Norman Wilfred, who has lost his whereabouts, his luggage, his temper and increasingly all normal sense of reality - everything he possesses apart from the flyblown text of a well-travelled lecture on the scientific organisation of science...
'A witty Rube Goldberg construction of a novel... Think Being There set to the staccato pacing of Noises Off , and hold on to your funny bones.' -- Library Journal
'Entertaining... A lacerating satire.' -- Publishers Weekly
Author
About Michael Frayn
Michael Frayn was born in London in 1933 and began his career as a journalist on the Guardian and the Observer. His novels include Towards the End of the Morning, The Trick of It and A Landing on the Sun. Headlong (1999) was shortlisted for the Booker Prize, while his most recent novel, Spies (2002), won the Whitbread Novel Award. His fifteen plays range from Noises Off to Copenhagen and most recently Afterlife. A collection of his travel writing, Travels with a Typewriter, was published in 2009, and a memoir, My Father's Fortune, in 2010. In April 2012 Michael Frayn was awarded the Sky Arts South Bank Lifetime Achievement award. He is married to the writer Claire Tomalin.
