The Hound in the Left-Hand Corner
Auberon, the brilliant but troubled Director of the Museum of British History (known as BRIT) is preparing one Midsummer’s Day for the opening of the most spectacular exhibition the Museum has ever staged. The centrepiece of the exhibition is Gainsborough’s portrait of the beautiful but intriguing Lady St John; not shown in London for a hundred years, the painting shows its subject strikingly attired as Puck. As the day passes the portrait arouses in the minds of the museum staff disquieting questions, rivalries, and strangely deep affections. Tension mounts: will the gala dinner be a success? Can the Museum’s Chairman be kept under control? And just what is it that’s so peculiar about the portrait?
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Reviews
Not just a sparkling farce, one disaster following hard on the heels of another, but a blistering satire on the museum world and its many parasites. There are some memorably ghastly minor characters
Waterfield's comic novel, always urbanely light-hearted, hides a meaner satirical punch benwath its entertaining surface
Waterfield's comic novel, always urbanely light-hearted, hides a meaner satirical punch beneath its entertaining surface
Waterfield's uproarious portrait of museum life is daubed with flashes of silver-tongued satire... Amid the frivolity, he manages to insert some apt digs at New Labour obsessions with modernity
Delightfully light and funny satirical romp through the museum art-world... perfect holiday reading
Waterfield's uproarious portrait of museum life is daubed with flashes of silver-tongued satire, and he delights in puncturing the pomposity of its senior hierarchy. Amid the frivolity, he manages to insert some apt digs at New Labour obsessions with modernity
Urbane and deceptively light-hearted satire on the clash between sponsorship and scholarship in the modern world