As It Happened

Involuntary self-murder is a symptom of what Matthew Maddox, emeritus professor of the Drayburgh School of Fine Art, considers to be a cultural as well as a social malaise - his millennial summing-up of the century he has lived through. His children gone, his wife re-married, his attempt at suicide having failed, he is drawn remorselessly through a process of rehabilitation, a search for 'purpose' which will oblige him to reassess the dynamism of a century he assumes has failed. Exploring the conjunction of art and faith and life, As It Happened is a profound meditation on the nature of death, and what it is we live for. It is the work of a master novelist.