Wrote For Luck

Book excerpt: A new collection from one of the UK's most celebrated biographers, novelists, critics - and, as these stories show, a quite brilliant artist. Wrote For Luck ranges from North Norfolk to Chicago, from sordid old antique dealers to glamorous young writers, from glorious local gossips to frustrated academics. The stories abound with gleeful absurdity, waspish humour, and exquisitely awkward, delightfully English conversations. But they are also rich in melancholy and the heady sadness of people struggling to find a place in the world. Some are fascinatingly strange; others are uncomfortably familiar. Some are simply hilarious - and all are touchingly human