The Debt To Pleasure

<p><b>Winner of the Whitbread First Novel Award 1996.</b><br><br><i>To like something is to want to ingest it and, in that sense, is to submit to the world; to like something is to succumb, in a small but contentful way, to death.</i><br><br>Tarquin Winot – hedonist, food obsessive, ironist and snob – travels a circuitous route from the Hotel Splendide in Portsmouth to his cottage in Provence. Along the way he tells the story of his childhood and beyond through a series of delectable menus, organized by season. But this is no ordinary cookbook, and as we are drawn into Tarquin’s world, a far more sinister mission slowly reveals itself . . .<br><br>John Lanchester’s <i>The Debt to Pleasure</i> is a wickedly funny ode to food; an erotic and sensual culinary journey. Its elegant, intelligent and unhinged narrator is nothing less than a work of art himself.<br><br><b>Now part of the Picador Collection, a series showcasing the very best of modern literature.</b></p>