Lost for Words

St. Aubyn's Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize-winning satire plants itself squarely in the absurd machinery of literary culture. A panel of judges labors through mountains of submissions for the prestigious Elysian Prize, while a cast of ambitious writers, scheming publicists, and self-important critics angle for advantage. When a clerical mix-up sends a cookbook in place of a hotly anticipated novel, and a judge finds himself entangled in scandal, St. Aubyn turns the whole enterprise inside out, exposing the vanity, tribalism, and motivated reasoning that pass for aesthetic judgment in the literary world.

Alex Jennings is ideally suited to this material, navigating a large ensemble of comic grotesques with sharp tonal control. He differentiates each voice cleanly, from the pompous to the hapless, and keeps the satirical momentum crisp across the novel's brisk five-hour runtime. St. Aubyn's layered irony and precise prose reward the kind of attentive performance Jennings delivers, making the audio format an especially satisfying way to experience the comedy.