Super Host

A New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice

A deeply funny and shrewdly observed debut novel about being lost in the very place you know by heart.

Bennett Driscoll has had better days. A Turner Prize-nominated artist, Bennett was once a rising star. Now, at age fifty-five, his wife has left him, he hasn’t sold a painting in two years, and his gallery wants to stop selling his work, claiming they’ll have more value retrospectively…when he’s dead. So, left with a large West London home and no income, he’s forced to move into his artist’s studio in the back garden and list his house on the popular vacation rental site, AirBed.

A stranger in his own home, with his daughter, Mia, off at art school, and any new relationships fizzling out at best, Bennett has trouble finding purpose in his day-to-day. That all changes when three different guests-lonely American Alicia; tortured artist Emma; and cautiously optimistic divorcee Kirstie-unwittingly unlock the pieces of himself that have been lost to him for too long.