Madness is Better than Defeat

Get in the xigxag app
This book is not purchasable in your country. Please select another book.
Pre-order Buy Now €{{ price }}
How does xigxag pricing work?

Listen to a sample

What to expect

The dazzling new novel by the Man Booker-nominated, Granta Best of Young British novelist, Ned Beauman.

In 1938, two rival expeditions set off for a lost Mayan temple in the jungles of Honduras, one intending to shoot a screwball comedy on location there, the other intending to disassemble it and ship it back to New York. A seemingly endless stalemate ensues, and twenty years later, when a rogue CIA agent learns that both expeditions are still out in the wilderness, he embarks on a mission to exploit the temple as a geopolitical pawn. But the mission hurtles towards disaster when he discovers that the temple is the locus of grander conspiracies than anyone could have guessed.

(P)2017 Hodder & Stoughton Limited

Critics Review

  • Dazzling . . . his best to date . . . If there is one adjective that describes Beauman’s prose it is ‘buoyant’ – a quality which allows the reader to get through a long book with little effort, and the author to carry the considerable heft of his intelligence lightly. And it is a roaming intelligence.

    Spectator

  • Madness is Better than Defeat is a Swiss watch: there isn’t a single moving part out of place . . . The jokes are superb . . . a zestful romp? Undoubtedly. But that doesn’t quite do justice to the experience of reading Madness is Better than Defeat. The book is certainly a literary performance of a high order . . . The clockwork runs beautifully. Every paragraph gives pleasure.

    Literary Review

  • Almost perfect . . . This is one of the most purely enjoyable novels I’ve read in years – by turns sad, moving, thoughtful, intriguing, clever, enlightening, surprising and laugh-out-loud funny – which is more than enough. I can’t think of any type of reader who wouldn’t enjoy it: whether your thing is genre, literary or, like this, a fizzling, sparking, sparkling mixture of the two.

    Irish Independent

  • A teaming shaggy-dog comedy of megalomania and obsession . . . Beauman is a sparkling writer, and his book bustles with diverting micro-narratives . . . A novel of great intelligence and humour, cleverly structured and brimming with tricks . . . a tremendous rainbow

    New Statesman

  • Beauman has a gift: he’s a natural comic writer. (I’ve only read one funnier book this year)

    Guardian

  • It reminded me of a Coen brothers film . . . I found it enchanting, and I was happy to turn every page . . . I really enjoyed it

    BBC Radio 4 Saturday Review

More from the same

Author

Narrator

Subscribe to our newsletter

Sign up to get tailored content recommendations, product updates and info on new releases. Your data is your own: we commit to protect your data and respect your privacy.