This article was published in the Western Daily Press on 13 October 1999.
AUTHOR Tom Sharpe is famed for his savagely comic novels, biting satire and bizarre plots.
But the creator of Blott On The Landscape and Porterhouse Blue had an admission to make when he appeared at the Cheltenham Festival of Literature.
Sharpe told the audience at Cheltenham’s Everyman Theatre that his hilarious story lines are based on divine inspiration. And that, for the moment at least, has sadly deserted him.
“I’ve been working on something for four years. I’ve written over half a million words and it’s dead, I know it’s dead,” he said.
“The trouble is, there are six chapters in the middle which I know are really good.”
So, unless inspiration returns, fans may be denied a thirteenth Sharpe novel.
Sharpe said: “I will not publish a book unless it makes me laugh. And, if I can’t make my wife Nancy smile after 165 pages, out of the window it goes.”
Despite his efforts over the last four years, he says he is still awaiting for literary inspiration which will allow him to develop a plot “in a ludicrous and most appalling way.” …
[Article continues but unrelated to Tom]