Kitchen Venom

by Philip Hensher

Winner of a Somerset Maugham Award 1997 A stunning novel of political life, betrayal and passion, which lifts the lid on vice within the Palace of Westminster!and cost Hensher his job as a House of Commons clerk. John is a distinguished widower with a hump, two daughters, and an important job in the House of Commons. He also has a fondness for visiting rent boys in the afternoons, and a passion for secrecy!

Genres: LGBT, Fiction, Novels, 20th Century, Politics, Gay

325 pages, Paperback

First published April 25, 1996

About the author

Hensher was born in South London, although he spent the majority of his childhood and adolescence in Sheffield, attending Tapton School.[2] He did his undergraduate degree at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford before attending Cambridge, where he was awarded a PhD for work on 18th century painting and satire. Early in his career he worked as a clerk in the House of Commons, from which he was fired over the content of an interview he gave to a gay magazine.[1] He has published a number of novels, is a regular contributor, columnist and book reviewer for newspapers and weeklies such as The Guardian, The Spectator , The Mail on Sunday and The Independent.
The Bedroom of the Mister’s Wife (1999) brings together 14 of his stories, including ‘Dead Languages’, which A. S. Byatt selected for her Oxford Book of English Short Stories (1998), making Hensher the youngest author included in the anthology.http://literature.britishcouncil.org/...
Since 2005 he has taught creative writing at the University of Exeter. He has edited new editions of numerous classic works of English Literature, such as those by Charles Dickens and Nancy Mitford, and Hensher served as a judge for the Booker Prize. From 2013 he will hold the post of Professor of Creative Writing at Bath Spa University.[3]
Since 2000, Philip Hensher has been listed as one of the 100 most influential LGBT people in Britain,[4] and in 2003 as one of Granta's twenty Best of Young British Novelists.[1]
In 2008, Hensher's semi-autobiographical novel The Northern Clemency was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize. In 2012, Hensher won first prize -German Travel Writers Award, and is shortlisted for the Green Carnation Prize. He also won the Stonewall Prize for the Journalist of the Year in 2007 and The Somerset Maugham Award for his novel Kitchen Venom in 1996. He wrote the libretto for Thomas Adès' 1995 opera Powder Her Face. This has been his only musical collaboration to date.
His early writings have been characterized as having an "ironic, knowing distance from their characters" and "icily precise skewerings of pretension and hypocrisy"[1] His historical novel The Mulberry Empire "echos with the rhythm and language of folk tales" while "play[ing] games" with narrative forms.[1]
He is married to Zaved Mahmood, a human rights lawyer at the United Nations.

You can find out more about Philip on his author page at 4th Estate Books: http://www.4thestate.co.uk/author/phi...

Reviews

[Ryan Davison · Rating 2 out of 5]

Partly nihilistic, somewhat satirical, Kitchen Venom is a look at gay British clerks who work in the House of Commons. It's an odd bird of a book.

A reader can expect some entertaining scenes, but even more boring ones, some mildly interesting characters, but more dull ones. It highlights a hunchback, his mean chain-smoking drunk of a daughter, and thankfully, Louis, a super-sexy, unabashedly fat, gay man. The writing has its moments and is good in stretches, but the plot jumps with a randomness we must assume is an attempt at being whimsical. At the halfway point the main point of the book is unclear, and by the end, we are left guessing.

The few scenes from the perspective of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher left me wanting more. She observes that she might have a meeting with someone she'd have forgotten by the next day, but they would remember it for the rest of their lives. It's an interesting reflection about the ultra-famous.

This is a new printing (with a fantastic cover) available in March of 2026. If resounding themes that will resonate with new readers exist they eluded me. Thanks to Edelweiss for a review copy.

[Flynn CS · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kind of an unbelievable mess of a book, but a beautifully written mess, even if it spends most of its time rarely going anywhere. It feels kind of like an early draft of something that could eventually be a masterpiece, because there are a whole lot of great narrative ideas (repressed bureaucrat slips into violence, Margaret Thatcher as a godlike omniscient narrator, everything to do with Jane), but Hensher develops an obsessive focus on the least interesting bits of his narrative. Awesome prose, though.

[Abigail · Rating 1 out of 5]

At times fascinating, at others utterly dull. I dunno. To me, it felt opaque. I felt like the author thought he was a hotshot and didn’t have an editor with the guts to tell him otherwise. I’m not even mad about this one, just sort of bored and apathetic. Maybe I’m just not built to understand the mysteries of gay British civil servants in the era of Thatcher’s downfall. Woe is me.

As a fan of McNally Editions, I must say that thus far, this has been the most disappointing read. Better luck next time.

[Daily Alice · Rating 2 out of 5]

I honestly have no idea what I thought of this book. There was middle class family stuff going on. There was house of parliament stuff going on. I never knew or had any emotions about the characters. But I feel I've missed something vital. Not sure what though. And I can't say I didn't like it.

[Glenn Richard]

"Quickly, giving nothing away of their grandeur, the Cabinet assembled in the little room. In their faces, confidence and cheer blandly showed. As they came in, and as they stood, however, the stiffness and rage and fear showed itself, and they did not try to keep it apart. Sometimes they talked generally, but today they talked little, and to their associates, looking about them. The Prime Minister came into the ante-room almost sideways with the last member of the Cabinet, her grand strut unlike his confident rapid slouch. When she walked, she seemed to extinguish a cigarette beneath every pace, it could be seen that she was in the right."

[Spiros · Rating 2 out of 5]

Sporadically engaging, occasionally amusing, this novel focuses on a coterie of Clerks in the House of Commons, who, when they aren't busily engaged in doing fuck all, are wittily disparaging of the Members of Parliament who they...serve? tolerate? patronize? We are vouchsafed access to the families of a couple of the Clerks, who are tied together in a manner that verges on the incestuous.
Along the way, we are allowed a glimpse into the inner life of Margaret Thatcher, which is something I was perfectly fine not imagining.

[Annette Morris · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enjoyed this political/family drama for its sly humour, its revelations about the banality of life in Westminster and because of the slow burn that almost imperceptibly increases in tension as the story progresses. Sad that the author lost his job as a Commons Clerk for writing a novel with Commons Clerks in it but maybe a good thing for literature. Probably means the story is a bit too close to the bone for some.

[Harry Smith]

This book is rated way too low wtf

---

Jane was choking on a bit of flaky pastry Francesca had made for the pie with excessive care, or possibly laughter. "It's the way you do it,' she said eventually. 'If we were all in Lolita, who would we be?'

'Jane,' John said. 'I do wish you'd behave yourself. You're not thirteen years old.'

...

They, palsied, shook

[Stephen · Rating 3 out of 5]

TBC

[Gareth Evans · Rating 2 out of 5]

Having read 3 of Philip Hensher's later novels (King of the Badgers, Northen Clemancy and Mulberry Empire) in the last 6 months or so, I was looking forward to reading his 2nd novel. Unfortunately it's a rather dull piece of work. It's not without it's moments - there is a wonderful desction of Mrs Thatcher's walk and some great dialogue when Jane is involved. However, the book lacks coherence and the parts set in Westminster are very disappointing.

[Poonam · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was the first book I read by the author. A really dull piece of work that superficially ramble about so that you don't feel much for any of the characters, perhaps Jane's helplessness. Then it rambles from House of Commons, an intriguing piece about Mrs Thatcher, also some unpredictable, meaningless events. I read it on a long bus journey, nothing about the book made it pleasurable.

[Doug · Rating 2 out of 5]

Clever writing but characters' actions and motives were not credible. Funny in places but overall a disappointment.