Late Hector Kipling

Hector Kipling is an artist: an artist with loving parents, a beautiful girlfriend, dependable mates, good health, and talent in abundance. Or at least, more talent than most, and certainly more than his friend Kirk—who paints cutlery—if not quite as much as their mutual friend Lenny. But when things begin to unravel, it doesn’t take long for Hector’s charmed world to fall completely and irreparably apart. Indeed, it’s amazing just how quickly a life can disintegrate. One minute, you’re fine and focussed on the future, the next you’re sobbing in front of an Edvard Munch painting in the permanent collection, with no discernible way forward. From settees to stalkers, con-men to corpses, selfportraits to S&M, The Late Hector Kipling is a warm and witty novel about the not-so-warm and witty world in which we live. Tracing Hector Kipling’s journey from the dizzy heights of solo shows to a deep hole in the floor of the Tate Modern, it’s an irreverent and entertaining exploration of life, death, art, and everything in-between.