A Friend Like Harvey

‘thoroughly delightful novel…a comic masterpiece’ - Daily Telegraph

What is to be done with a man like Harvey Hotham? Charming, funny, talkative and friendly he may be on the surface, but peel back the layers and there lies a swindler, an adulterer, a man who sticks at nothing, cares nothing for others, and is, above all else, pathologically incapable of telling the truth.

A man not nearly as good-looking as he likes to think he is, yet apparently irresistible to women; a man for whom practically every enterprise is a failure, yet who carries with him an air of success; a fantasist who never runs out of people prepared to believe him — or love him.

Harvey is, in short, a liar, a fraud and a swine.

For decades he cuts a swathe through wives, lovers, friends, relatives, business partners.

No one remains untouched by the experience — until a spectacular act of selfish cruelty lands Harvey, finally, in real trouble.

A Friend Like Harvey is a razor-sharp observation of social class, morality and the characters of outsiders, from the ever-watchful pen of Teresa Waugh.


Praise for A Friend Like Harvey


‘A horribly compelling story…In a moral climate where charm is the cardinal virtue, there is something quite subversive about Teresa Waugh’s implacable portrait of her charming and repulsive anti-hero’ -Sunday Telegraph

‘This thoroughly delightful novel is a rake’s progress. Waugh’s narrator tells Harvey’s fictionalised biography with an enviable dry, sly wit. Humour is added as deftly as a cordon-bleu chef might flavour a dish…A comic masterpiece’ Daily Telegraph

‘This high comedy, which I thoroughly recommend, has a darker theme than some of Teresa Waugh’s earlier books. She is one of the most distinctive, abrasive comedians on the literary scene’ - Daily Mail

‘Reads like a memoir about the kind of man we all know — a real bastard, lying his way through life while retaining a curious fascination. With a satisfactory twist, this is cool, compelling storytelling’ - Harpers & Queen

‘Waugh specialises in the self-deceptions that arise as people squirm away from themselves, dodging their uncomfortable memories. In A Friend Like Harvey she produces a beguilingly credible monster to portray this theme. [An] elegantly contrapuntal study of two different versions of self-deceit. As modest and self-effacing as its narrator, this is a small, still and austerely realistic depiction of how we go about failing to remember each other’ - Spectator

‘An acid-sharp portrait of a lovable cad. A beautifully controlled, witty and absorbing comedy of manners’ - Good Housekeeping

Teresa Waugh has translated numerous books from French and Italian. Her previous novels include Song at Twilight, Sylvia’s Lot and The Gossips. She lives in Somerset.

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