Rather a cold fish

Published first novel (Salmon Fishing in the Yemen) at the age of 59, Richard and Judy choice, won Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Comic Fiction; spent his whole career in industry; lives in Northumberland, wears tweed cap, likes fishing…These are the facts you read about Paul Torday time and again, and he must be getting tired of them.   

That first book really was good: the kind of novel you wish you’d written yourself, all done in emails, extracts from diaries and letters, snatches of Hansard, articles in newspapers, transcripts of interrogation sessions. It was a charming satire, about politicians, entrepreneurs and fish. His late career-change and success gave hope to thousands of 59-year-olds.

Now, I fear, people are going to start saying, ‘Tiredness can kill your prose. Take a break.’ The man has been churning out novels at the rate of at least one a year since 2007. They’re not bad, but they’re not a patch on Salmon Fishing.