Andrew Humphreys

Andrew Humphreys lives in Sydney with his family. He has worked as a magazine writer, editor and publisher and has twice been named as one of the Sydney Morning Herald's best young Australian novelists for the novels The Weight of the Sun (2001) and Wonderful (2004).

His latest novel is Martin Westley Takes a Walk, published by Random House in March 2010.

Books by Andrew Humphreys

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  The Weight of the Sun

  James Bloomington is prone to nose bleeds, sweating fits and excessive formality. Very few people find this in any way endearing. His father having disappeared, quite literally, before his second birthday, James has been raised by his mother, Veronica, a woman known and feared for her beauty and her fondness for the STSC-720 N95 line of disposable particulate respirators. Working as a junior editor for legal publishers Sandler and Harris, James has arranged his solitary life according to his own peculiar standards of conduct and, more importantly, order. But when Veronica discovers an apparently homeless man sitting in a city lane who may or may not look like her son in 10 years time, James Bloomington's sense of his own identity is called into question and his life begins to unravel around him.

  Set in Sydney, The Weight of the Sun is a black comic novel about a boy and his mother, love and detachment, loneliness and hope. It also features one particularly good joke about a German shepherd.

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  Wonderful

  Wonderful is the story of a movie star monkey and his drunken, not-so-loveable trainer. A faithful recreation of old Tarzan movies, complete with exploding coconuts and chimpanzee antics, Wonderful is also a comic and sometimes sad emigrant's tale.

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  Martin Westley Takes a Walk

  Martin Westley has lost his memory and quite possibly his mind. He has a wife who despises him, a son who ignores him and a daughter who is drifting away. He has a nice house, a not-so-nice factory and an aggressively attractive mistress. But something is deeply, terribly wrong, and he knows he needs to make it right.
  

  So Martin Westley walks. Along the way he picks up a cowboy hat, a sense of purpose, and an Indian who isn't really an Indian. And if he's lucky, he might just recover his life.
  

  A darkly comic parable about families and the wonderful opportunities errant action kites can provide to start life anew.
  

  'Martin Westley Takes a Walk['s] best asset is its surprisingly generous heart.'
  —Read Venero Ammano's review in the Australian here.

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