Jake Chapman

Following tthe success of his first novel The Marriage of Reason and Squalor, Jake Chapman now focuses his malice on the calloused underbelly of literature itself. Fragile amateur novelist Christabel Ludd has a bad case of writer's block, and hires self-proclaimed “professionals” to transform her novel into a page-turner: they do so, spinning the tale of Bao Xishun, who saves the lives of some dolphins by using his extremely long arms to fish pieces of plastic flotsam from their stomachs. Working this tale into ever more bizarre incarnations, they finally cause Christabel to despairingly resort to poetry in order to break her block.

In his fiction debut, the notorious British artist Jake Chapman satirizes the standard paperback romance novel in his own inimitable way, slashing the genre down to bare bones and creating a disfigured version from the remains. The Marriage of Reason & Squalor is a corollary to the visual work for which Jake Chapman, in collaboration with his brother Dinos, is best known. The novel opens when our heroine, Chlamydia Love, is gifted a desert island by her fiancée, but develops a fascination with its rightful owner, the devilishly unattractive writer Helmut Mandragorass, instead. A battle begins over the ownership of the island and, ultimately, Chlamydia's love. Included as an insert is Mandragorass' opus Come Hell or High Water, along with a number of actual rejection letters sent to Mandragorass/Chapman from publishers who perhaps should have known better. Also featured are 20 limited edition color prints by Chapman--in the guise of Chlamydia Love