The Fall and Fall of Derek Haffman by M.J. Nicholls


The Fall and Fall of Derek Haffman
Title : The Fall and Fall of Derek Haffman
Author :
Rating :
ISBN : 1952386748
ISBN-10 : 9781952386749
Language : English
Format Type : Paperback
Number of Pages : 332
Publication : Published May 7, 2024

Verily miffed by the chancres of chance, chronically ineffective politician Derek Haffman affects to effect an unspecified political revolution by pickpocketing his colleagues in the lobby of the Scottish Parliament. In the wake of the abject failure of this objectless mission, repercussions naturally unfold in painfully precise procession, forcing Derek and his chronically untalented mistress, the singer in an avant-garde rock band too toxic for human ears, to flee to Cádiz. An unexpected visit from disgraced former politician and bestselling author Jethro Quiver unpeels another layer from the onion of shame in this shambling comic novel that chronicles the descent of a passionately aimless man, a rebel unable to think up an appropriate cause to lend his rebelling talents.

A pleasantly unpleasant tale told in four blissfully interminable chapters by the Milky Way’s leading virtuoso of the vowels and consonants, The Fall and Fall of Derek Haffman is the perfect read for anyone open to consider that unspecified solutions to unidentified political problems may not yield juicily delectable results.

The Fall and Fall of Derek Haffman Reviews

  • MJ Nicholls

    Ever wondered if one frustrated politician could bring about a non-specific form of political revolution by pickpocketing the parliamentarians in the parliamentary lobby, then using those funds to kick-start some form of unspecified, opaque, and incomprehensible change in the governance of a nation? If so, the new novel from me is the new novel for you. Coming in May.

  • Steven Moore

    O frabjous day! After a collection of short stories and a tour-de-forceful trilogy of fictional gazetteers, Nicholls has gifted us with a new novel, as logophilic and bucksfizzy as his previous triumphs. This one concerns an acid-tongued Scottish politician’s disgust with his Parliament—using the real names of current and recent members and subjecting them to Therouvian insults—and his desperate attempt to find a new life in sunny Spain with a skronk-rocker half his age. The plot is engaging and well-paced; however, one doesn’t read Nicholls for the story but for the manic energy and ingenuity of his maximalist, Red Bullish language: the antic adjectives, vigorous verbs, neologisms, and onomatopoeticisms; the labyrinthine paratactic sentences; the shiny similes and absurdly extended metaphors; the lists and set-pieces; the metafictional moves; the boffin music allusions (such as “bucksfizzy”) and literary references; the hilarious obscenities; and dialogue that is as gloriously unrealistic as Shakespeare’s.
    But it’s not all linguistic fun and games. The exuberant prose seethes with caustic contempt for the UK, especially its imperialistic, class-bound past. “Here, in the heart of Merrie England, Olde Money had bludgeoned progress in the neck for millennia, each little concession to newness like pulling teeth from the maw of a narwhal” (234). His wildfire hatred spreads to modern society in general, a global lunatic asylum that—if you share Nicholl’s misanthropy—is tolerable only with the help of anti-depressants like The Fall & Fall of Derek Haffman.
    And all hail Sagging Meniscus for continuing to publish the works of this postmodern master.