A Clue to the Exit

Charlie Fairburn, successful screenwriter of Aliens with a Human Heart, ex-husband and absent father, has been given 6 months to live. He resolves to stake half his fortune on a couple of turns of the roulette wheel and, to his agent's disgust, to write a novel - about death. In the casino he meets his muse. Charlie grows as addicted to writing fiction as she is to gambling. Charlie's novel is set on a train and involves a group of characters locked in a debate about the nature of consciousness. As the train gets stuck at Didcot Junction and Charlie gets more passionately entangled with the dangerous young woman who is his nemesis, A Clue to the Exit comes to its startling climax. Exquisitely crafted, witty and thoughtful, Edward St Aubyn's dazzling new novel overturns expectations and probes the very heart of being.