Elliot Cooper's Work Here Is Done

Elliot Cooper is thirty-five and his life is stuck. Sales have been declining for nineteen months and his marriage is running aground. Then a case of mistaken identity leads to an intriguing job offer and the chance to reboot his career. But that’s when Elliot’s problems really begin. A woman he should never have drunkenly kissed is stalking him. Crispin, his new boss, starts coming on to him. And the new product he has been hired to launch is a terrible idea that looks certain to fail. With his career and his marriage hanging in the balance, Elliot decides he has to come clean and reveal the truth. It will be the most important presentation of his life.

Nick Dutton’s debut novel, Elliot Cooper’s Work Here Is Done, is set in the world of marketing and takes the reader on a hilarious journey through brainstorms, brands, marketing-speak and life in middle-management. Elliot Cooper is thirty-five and his life is stuck. Sales have been declining for nineteen months and his marriage is running aground. Then a case of mistaken identity leads to an intriguing job offer and the chance to reboot his career. But that’s when Elliot’s problems really begin. A woman he should never have drunkenly kissed is stalking him. Crispin, his new boss, starts coming on to him. And the new product he has been hired to launch is a terrible idea that looks certain to fail. With his career and his marriage hanging in the balance, Elliot decides he has to come clean and reveal the truth. It will be the most important presentation of his life. Elliot Cooper’s Work Here Is Done explores themes of luck, karma, success, failure, ambition, sex and processed meats. It asks the question, how far will someone go to get their life back when fate throws them the wrong bone?

Nick Dutton is 40 and lives in Kensal Rise, West London, with his wife and two children. Nick was born in South Africa but grew up and went to school and university in England. He works in London for an advertising agency. Elliot Cooper’s Work Here Is Done is his debut novel. He is currently working on his second novel, about a man close to retirement, who has a house with declining water pressure, a collapsing pension and one day finds that he’s mysteriously wearing another man’s underpants.