A brief and brilliant satire of magazine hacks and fashionistas, The
Sweet Smell of Psychosis shows Will Self - a writer acclaimed as "a
masterly prose-maker" by London's Sunday Times - at the top of his form.
It looks as if it's going to be quite a Christmas for Richard Hermes,
powdered with cocaine and whining with the white noise of urban
derangement. Not so much enfolded as trapped in the bosom of the most
venal media clique in London, Richard is losing it on all fronts: he's
losing his heart to Ursula Bentley, a nubile and vacuous magazine
columnist; he's in danger of losing his job at the pretentious listings
magazine Rendezvous; he's losing his mind courtesy of Colombia's chief
illegal export; and, worst of all, he's losing his soul ... to Bell.
Bell is a newspaper columnist, radio host, television personality - but
more than that, he is the kingpin guiding the ship of media scandal
through the lower depths. From his headquarters in the Sealink Club he
pulls the strings that control the disseminators of drek and gatherers
of glib. And he has had Ursula Bentley and just about everyone else,
female and male. As Richard pursues the Jicki perfume wafting from
Ursula, he is in fact being drawn into a much more sinister web. Murky,
paranoid, and hilarious, The Sweet Smell of Psychosis is Will Self at
his best.
