Art and the Revolutionary Human Fruit Machine

Entertainingly relates what happens when the modern art circus descends on an unsophisticated little town.

Ask a bus queue for their thoughts on contemporary art, and you’re liable to get salty answers. This irreverent, funny and thought-provoking tale is for them. When Ben Banding’s quiet estuary town holds a modern art festival, the secretively brilliant painter comes up against art world supremo Oliver Rabson and life unravels for them both. Take memorable characters, stir in art, sailing, mischievous humour and a pinch of romance. Set in beautiful Suffolk. Result: a wry and compelling story that entertainingly relates what happens when the modern art circus descends on an unsophisticated little town. Might it be satire? Possibly. An absorbing story as well? You judge. Is it a laugh at the expense of modern art? Oh yes. They won’t want you to read it!

Alex Pankhurst describes herself as a Very Ordinary Old Bird, adding,’VOOBs like me don’t take easily to Twitter, FaceBook or YouTube, and we keep hold of our privacy like skirt-clutching dowagers in a high wind. I live a very quiet life in Constable Country, East Anglia. (For the far-flung, that’s the bulge sticking out on the east side of England, a land of rivers, estuaries and gentle countryside, part of it made famous by the paintings of John Constable.) Both Art and the Revolutionary Human Fruit Machine, and a previous novel, Scoffing the Primroses are set there.’ Her aim is to write stories that readers will really enjoy. To make them feel better at the end of it than they did at the beginning, have a chuckle yet learn something along the way. She is also the author of Who Does Your Garden Grow?, which traces the background and stories behind much-loved garden plants.