One Hand Clapping

This is a wicked, funny novel about a couple who come into big money and from there go uphill (her) and downhill (him).

He has a photographic memory and becomes a sensation on a TV quiz programme; and using this skill, goes on to win a fortune on the horses. She loves what this money can buy. But then it all starts to go horribly wrong when a young poet gate-crashes their life.

This brilliant novel is Burgess’s merciless satire on Britain in the 1960s as it lurches towards commercialism and increasing acceptance of American culture.

It was also, in the author’s own words, a personal quest: “How far did I understand women? I would find out by turning myself into a woman and write a first person narrative…”.

The result is one of Burgess’s most entertaining, yet probing, works of fiction.