Wild Ink

by Richard Smyth

Wild Ink is a blackly comic story of friendship and envy, love and memory, booze and uproar, secrets and scandal. Albert Chaliapin is dead – or at least, he feels like he ought to be. He lives in a world occupied only by the ghosts of his former life (and his nurse, who can’t even get his name right). Then, one day, his past – in the form of a drunk cartoonist, a suicidal hack and a corrupt City banker – pays a visit, and Chaliapin is resurrected, whether he likes it or not. He doesn’t, much.

Someone’s sending him some very strange cartoons. Someone’s setting off bombs all over London. Someone’s been up to no good with some very important people. This is no job for a man wearing pyjamas. Will Chaliapin make it out alive? And is being alive, when it comes down to it, really all it’s cracked up to be?

Richard Smyth is a writer and journalist. His short fiction has appeared in Riptide Journal, The Stinging Fly, The Fiction Desk, Litro, .Cent and Vintage Script. As a journalist, he has written for publications including New Humanist and New Scientist, and he is the author of the non-fiction books Bum Fodder and English Strange But True. In 2013, he won our LS13 prize for his short story ‘Deep’. Wild Ink is his first novel.

Paperback

First published June 6, 2014

About the author

Richard Smyth is a writer, researcher and editor based in Bradford. He is a regular contributor to Bird Watching magazine, and reached the final of Mastermind with a specialist subject of British birds. He writes and reviews for The Times, Guardian, Times Literary Supplement, Literary Review, New Statesman, BBC Wildlife, New Humanist, Illustration and New Scientist. He also writes novels and short fiction, and has written several books on English history.

Reviews

[Jessica Baumgartner · Rating 5 out of 5]

I actually feel guilty for getting this in the kindle free store. I'm going to purchase a hard copy because the author deserves my money. This story is basically a man's last hurrah as his body won't last much longer. It's a great tale that has a lot of laughs and a lot of sentimentality. Beautifully written, I am glad it is the first book I finished in 2015.

[Steven Pilling · Rating 2 out of 5]

It's a 2.5 rather than a 2 .
It has its moments but feels arch ,the dialogue doesn't feel right , it makes me think of Anthony frewin weirdly but isn't as good

It's a decent first novel but it feels incomplete it does have some funny moments and isn't a waste of time .

Would read him again

[Diane · Rating 5 out of 5]

If I like a book I tend to read it quickly. I read this book over a weekend in two sittings - well I had to sleep at some point. Recommended.

[Sarah Carter]

DNF