Dead Writers in Rehab

When literary reprobate Foster James wakes up in a strange country house, he assumes he's been consigned to rehab (yet again) by his dwindling band of friends and growing collection of ex-wives.

But he soon realises there's something a bit different about this place after he gets punched in the face by Ernest Hemingway.

Is Foster dead? Has his less-than-saintly existence finally caught up with him? After an acrimonious group therapy session with Hunter S Thompson, Colette, William Burroughs, and Coleridge, it seems pretty likely. But he still feels alive, especially after an up-close and personal one-on-one session with Dorothy Parker.

When he discovers that the two enigmatic doctors who run the institution are being torn apart by a thwarted love affair, he and the other writers must work together to save something that, for once, is bigger than their own gigantic egos.

This is a love story. It's for anyone who loves writing and writers. It's also a story about the strange and terrible love affair between creativity and addiction, told by a charming, selfish bastard who finally confronts his demons in a place that's part Priory, part Purgatory, and where the wildest fiction can tell the soberest truth.

Paul Bassett Davies has been writing for thirty years and he still hasn't finished. He writes for television, radio and film, including the Sony Award-winning radio show Do Go On, the sitcom Reception on BBC Radio 4, and radio plays starring Bill Nighy, David Hemmings, Alison Steadman and Martin Clunes.

Paul wrote the screenplay for the feature animated film The Magic Roundabout and has been working on a film about counter-culture comic book heroes The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers with their creator, comics legend Gilbert Shelton. He has published several short stories, and his first novel, Utter Folly, was published in 2012. Dead Writers in Rehab is his second novel.