Constantine Phipps

Author

Add to shortlist

Books

Agent: Caroline Dawnay
Assistant: Eleanor Horn

Books

Constantine Phipps was born in Yorkshire and is the author of two previous novels: Careful with the Sharks and Among the Thin Ghosts. For many years he has been involved in property development and has interests in the UK and Canada. He lives in London with his wife, the author Nicola Shulman, and has four children.

LATEST PUBLICATION

WHAT YOU WANT, Quercus, May 2014

Patrick is still in love with his separated wife. Returning with their son after a trip to an amusement park, he begs, one last time, to reconcile with her. When she refuses, he is driven to thoughtless desperation: a bottle of sleeping pills, a bottle of whisky. And in his dying dream, he revisits that theme park of childish desire.

Beginning with the first line of Dante's Divine Comedy and taking in Disneyworld, the Declaration of Independence and the canon  of philosophy in its stride, What You Want is a literary feat: a novel written entirely in verse, depicting life in all its ordinariness. It gives voice to a new Everyman and brings forth an unparallelled modern epic.