Palace Pier

Keith Waterhouse
Former Resident of Embassy Court Brighton
Photo:Palace Pier

Palace Pier

book cover photography by Georgia Kossifou

This is the story of Chris Duffy, a writer that usurps the manuscript of a famous novelist in a bid for fame at the Brighton Literary Festival.

The locations are a mixture of the genuine - the Theatre Royal, the Metropole and of course the Palace Pier - and the fictional 'I'm sure I know that place' pubs. In a haze of beer and vodka, worthy of Hangover Square, Duffy sets out to find a long lost manuscript by Mister Hamilton which he plans to claim as his own work in order to revive his career as a novelist. Unfortunately this one-hit-wonder author has not managed to write anything more than a pile of letters to the newspapers (mostly unpublished) in 40 years. His only concrete source of income is a bric-a-brac stall in the North Laine.
Trailing through a glittering assembly of wealthy writers, over-the-hill broadcasters and nymphomaniac publishing assistants at the Brighton Literary Festival, Duffy bitterly resents the fact that no-talent upstarts are being published while life is preventing him from getting started on his next best seller.

This page was added on 01/09/2006.

Comments/reviews:

Review by Rosemary Allix

If you live in Brighton you get the feeling that at some time in the past you have come across Chris Duffy. Or if not Duffy himself, then someone very like him. He is the essence of the Brighton that we all know exists but the likes of you and I, with our mundane 9-5 working lives, fortunately don't quite inhabit.
You can imagine Keith Waterhouse ensconced in a comfy corner of some Brighton watering hole keenly observing the pretentious, arty farty life passing by, chuckling to himself and jotting it all down as sharp fiction. His anti-hero Chris Duffy weaves an alcoholic path amongst a crowd of characters, all highly recognisable as the literary wannabes, made-its and has-beens that litter our beloved city.
If you love the unique pretentious arty world of Brighton you can't help but enjoy this witty sideways nudge at the city's literary crowd - unless you recognise yourself amongst the characters, of course!

By Rosemary Allix (01/09/2006)

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