Kitchen Venom

philip hensher is Chief Literary Critic for the Spectator, and regularly reviews in the best UK and US newspapers and journals. His other books include The Mulberry Empire, Kitchen Venom, Pleasured and The Bedroom of the Mister’s Wife.

‘Sharp and funny…a beautifully polished performance.’ Times Literary Supplement‘Sex, politics and death are the classic themes of Hensher's original novel. Set in Parliament at the time of the fall of Margaret Thatcher, it follows the disintegration of the family of a Commons clerk…Hensher is both sharp and melancholic. Here he is on Thatcher: “When she walked she seemed to extinguish a cigarette beneath every pace; in her walk, it could be seen that she was in the right.”’ Observer‘Incisive characterisation, first-class dialogue…Set amid the wigs and gowns of parliamentary officialdom, Philip Hensher’s second novel exposes the hidden tensions in apparently banal lives.’ Sunday Telegraph