How To Be A Public Author is a novel all about the Man Booker, using the prize as a springboard to explore what it means to be an author - and a human being - in the 21st century. It documents a series of fictitious happenings at real author events, as visited by the wonderful anti-hero Francis Plug - a troubled and often drunk misfit who causes chaos and confusion wherever he goes. Inventive, funny and moving, How To Be A Public Author is both a brilliant slapstick comedy and a surprising and touching meditation on loneliness.