David Whitehouse

BED IN FRANCE

Bonjour. On April 6th, Bed is published in France by Plon. Except it won't be called Bed, it will be called Couche. With an accent above the 'e'. It'll look all lovely and everything, like this. Backwards bonjour (goodbye).

BED IN ISRAEL

Bed is coming out in Israel in April. Fancy that. Here is the cover. That's my name in Hebrew.

A NICE ITALIAN CARTOONIST MADE THIS

Someone nice made a cartoon strip about Bed. I think that's meant to be me, bottom right. I like it.

BED - THE UK PAPERBACK

Bed in the UK will look like this and come out in April 2012. It's big on socks.

BED - THE AMERICAN PAPERBACK

The US paperback is moody like a teenager. It looks like this and will have a new short story that I've written inside it. I haven't written it yet. This poses all manner of problems.

BED IN TURKEY

This is what Bed will look like when it comes out in Turkey. It will be called Yatak. Yatak indeed.

THE GUARDIAN'S 'NOT THE BOOKER PRIZE'

Hello.

Bed has been nominated for The Guardian's 'Not The Booker Prize'. This is good news. You can vote for it by clicking on this link and following the elaborate web of instructions to their far away conclusion if you like. Go on. Might as well.

www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/aug/10/not-booker-prize-2011-vote

Thanks. If you did it.

BED. EXCEPT IN A CINEMA

David Whitehouse’s debut novel Bed will be adapted for film by Warp and Film4

Bed, the first book by journalist, filmmaker and author David Whitehouse, has been optioned by Warp Films, the BAFTA-winning production company behind Four Lions and This Is England, in a deal negotiated by Cathryn Summerhayes and Becky Thomas of WME.

The producers will be Mark Herbert and Libby Durdy (her second collaboration with Whitehouse).

Warp has developed a reputation for seeking out cutting edge writing talent and working with them to adapt to the big screen and received a lot of recognition for their high-profile adaptation of Joe Dunthorne’s debut novel Submarine earlier this year.

The winner of the To Hell With Prize 2010, Bed is a coming-of-age novel about a man with huge prospects who, one day, goes to bed and decides to never get out again. It has been sold into eleven countries, and received huge amounts of critical acclaim in both the UK and the United States since its publication in June this year.

Canongate senior editor Francis Bickmore says:

“Bed has been one of the fiction highlights of our year so far. The book’s really taken flight, I think partly because despite its unforgettable premise, it’s very universal. It is a book about the journey from being under the shadow of one’s family to finding one’s own place in the world. Pretty much everyone can relate to that. I couldn’t imagine better partners for this project than the maverick visionaries at Warp and Film4.”

Mark Herbert, Warp Films’ CEO says:

Like with "Submarine" we've been so lucky to find such an amazing debut novel that we all think has the potential to make a great film that will resonate all over the world. David has a truly original and distinctive voice and we intend to echo this when we put the film together.

Sam Lavender, Film4’s, Head of Development says:

David has written a terrific debut novel, it's insightful and sad and deeply humorous, and it feels a perfect fit for us to be developing it with the team at Warp.


Whitehouse has won awards for his journalism from the PPA, the PTC, The Times and The Evening Standard. His first short film, The Archivist, opened the BBC Electric Proms in 2008 and won awards at film festivals including Seattle and Berlin.

It has been taken into development with Film4 in a deal negotiated by Alex Marshall at Warp and Tracey Josephs at Film4.



Film4, headed by Tessa Ross, is Channel 4 Television’s feature film division. Film4 develops and co-finances films and is known for working with the most innovative talent in the U.K., whether new or established. Film4 has developed and co-financed many of the most successful UK films of recent years, films like Danny Boyle’s Slumdog Millionaire and 127 Hours, Martin McDonagh’s In Bruges. Steve McQueen’s Hunger, Mike Leigh’s Another Year, Mark Romanek’s Never Let Me Go, Chris Morris’ Four Lions and Peter Mullan’s NEDS.

Film4’s 2011 releases have included Kevin Macdonald’s The Eagle, Richard Ayoade’s Submarine and Joe Cornish’s directorial debut Attack The Block. Future releases include Ben Palmer’s The Inbetweeners Movie and Lone Scherfig’s One Day, which will both be released this August, followed by Miranda July’s The Future, Paddy Considine’s debut feature Tyrannosaur, Ben Wheatley’s Kill List and Terence Davies’ The Deep Blue Sea.

Film4’s current productions include Pawel Pawlikowski’s The Woman In The Fifth, Phyllida Lloyd’s The Iron Lady, Steve McQueen’s Shame, Walter Salles’ On The Road, Andrea Arnold’s Wuthering Heights, Peter Strickland’s Berberian Sound Studio and Roger Michell’s Hyde Park on Hudson.

For further information visit www.film4.com/productions


Warp is one of the foremost and most respected creative independent
companies, now comprised of Warp Records, Warp Films and Warp Music Videos &
Commercials. Since it's inception as a shop and record label in 1989, it
has been a platform for innovative and boundary-breaking talent.
Warp Films, launched in 2001, leads the way in exciting and original British
filmmaking. The company has been behind an array of critically acclaimed and
award winning films, including several BAFTAs. Warp Film productions
include Rubber Johnny, Dead Man's Shoes, This Is England, Donkey Punch, A
Complete History of My Sexual Failures and Four Lions.
Currently in post-production, as part of Warp's digital slate Warp X, is
Kill List, written and directed by Ben Wheatly. Shortly due for release
after its premiere at Sundance 2011 is Tyrannosaur, Paddy Considine's
directorial debut, starring Peter Mullan and Olivia Colman.

ALL SORTS OF UPDATES

The News of the World closed down yesterday, mere weeks after naming Bed one of their 'Best Summer Reads.' Coincidence? Pull the other one Murdoch.

Lots of things happening simultaneously. I know this is true all of the time, but at the moment it's true with regards to the book. Here are some of those things.

Just found out it's being reviewed in the New York Times Literary Review soon. Scary.

It's just come out in Australia. They are being very nice about it.

It's Booktrust's book of the month! they've reviewed it here.

www.booktrust.org.uk/show/book/Bed

And here, if you are too lazy to click.

Bed
By David Whitehouse

Published by Canongate

Winning the 2010 To Hell With Prizes First Novel Award and being picked up by Canongate isn’t bad for a novel that lay in David Whitehouse’s agent’s drawer of ‘destined for the big time’ manuscripts.

And now it’s out, what do we make of Bed. It’s a grotesquely funny, arch and morbid tale of two brothers, one second-best and the other spoilt and lazy. The spoilt lazy one hasn’t left his bed in over twenty years. We’re treated to some pretty disgusting descriptions of what happens to an immobile body as it rots in its own filth, doted on by its mother, and how this becomes Mal (the lazy one)’s unique ticket to fame… doing nothing.

Whitehouse has an eye for the one-liner, for the particularly gruesome turn of phrase and for comedy that is both unspoken, physical and witty.

Whether it’s a diatribe on our celebrity-mediocrity culture, our body-obsessed shock documentaries on Channel 4 (The Man Who Ate His Foot et al) or just a book about sibling rivalry, that is both tender and tense, unspoken and unending. Either way, Bed is a cunningly layered tale about all the things that make us grotesque human beings and how people love us for it.

LITERARY DEATH MATCH (almost, but not quite)

I read at Literary Death Match. I got to the final. I lost. It involved netball. Read the match report here.

www.literarydeathmatch.com/upcoming-events/london-ep-16.html

Things that people have said so far

BED

Kim Taylor Bennett, Time Out
Review, 4 stars
“The 30-year-old author strikes the perfect balance between clear, page-flipping storytelling and prose festooned with fresh, richly evocative imagery, exploring the uncomfortable familial experiences and unspoken ties that bind people.”

Kate Saunders, The Times (28/05)
Review
‘Hilarious and tragic; a perfectly brilliant debut.’
www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/arts/books/fiction/article3037791.ece

Psychologies (01/07)
Review – 4 stars
‘[Bed is] very clever. He blends hilarity and tenderness perfectly, and in so doing creates an unconventional story about what it really means to love someone else.’

Kate Watson-Smyth, The Independent (11/06)
Independent Information: The 50 Best Summer Reads
www.independent.co.uk/extras/indybest/arts-books/the-50-best-summer-reads-2295629.html

Lee Randall, The Scotsman (11/06)
Interview
news.scotsman.com/arts/Interview-David-Whitehouse-author.6783150.jp

Heat (11/06)
Heat’s Top Ten Books – No 2. Five stars.
‘a totally extraordinary and original novel’

The Bookseller (10/06)
Pic of the Week

‘Horace Bent’, The Bookseller (10/06)
Bent’s Notes
Report on the Bed launch at the Idler

Nick Duerden, Independent (09/06)
Feature interview
www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/features/is-an-award-the-only-way-to-guarantee-an-authors-shelf-life-2294831.html

Boyd Hilton, Heat Magazine (04/06)
Five star and feature review
‘One of the most original and exciting novels we’ve read in ages. And we’re not just saying that because the writer works for us.’

Fabulous Magazine, News of the World (05/06)
Review and competition – This Summer’s Hottest Reads
‘You will be up all night reading it!’
www.newsoftheworld.co.uk/notw/public/fabulous/1312715/Win-this-summers-hottest-reads.html

Arifa Akbar, The Independent (03/06)
Mention of the bed-in in the Arts Diary
www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/features/the-diary-jeffery-deaver-david-whitehouse-professor-robert-winston-desert-island-discs-love-never-dies-2292217.html

Radio Litopia (03/06)
Interview
www.litopia.com/radio/how-to-get-in-bed-with-your-favorite-author/

David Whitehouse, Shortlist (02/06)
Written feature [see attached scan]
www.shortlist.com/home/the-fascination-with-fat

Blokely Online
Review
‘Whitehouse brings something compelling to morbid obesity and opens up a new dialogue of the contrast between being a victim of these conditions and choosing it as a way to control a situation. It's twisted, but it had us gripped from beginning to end.’
blokely.com/life/bed-book-review/

Karen Edwards, Pop & Pretty Things
Review
‘Utterly absorbing and completely unforgettable.’
popandprettythings.blogspot.com/2011/06/book-review-bed-by-david-whitehouse.html

The Observer Magazine (22/05)
Up Front: The Lust List –
‘Sad and funny and pretty brilliant, too’

Sabotage Times (23/05)
Extract
www.sabotagetimes.com/life/bed-an-exclusive-excerpt-from-a-brilliant-debut-novel/

Nuneaton News (11/05)
Interview
www.nuneaton-news.co.uk/News/Global-hopes-11052011.htm

AUSTRALIA 27/06/11

On Monday 27th June, Bed comes out in Australia. That is far away, but no less exciting. I got sent an Australian edition the other day. It's bigger than the British version. I think that's because in Australia they have more space. This picture is taken from the catalogue of Text, the Australian publisher. Today I found out Bed will be published in Brazil too. Exotic.

EDINBURGH BOOK FESTIVAL

Hello. I am very happy to say that I've been invited to take part in Edinburgh Book Festival. I'll be there on Monday August 15th to talk about Bed, alongside Juan Pablo Villalobos who has written a book about a Mexican drug lord called Down The Rabbit Hole. Sounds exciting. And scary. And with drugs in it.

I'm also up for The Newton First Book Award at the festival, which is voted for by the public. Please click and vote and things if you have fingers. Much obliged.

THE DAILY MAIL

DEBUTS

By Stephanie Cross

BED BY DAVID WHITEHOUSE (Canongate £11.99)

Forty-five-year-old Mal is the heaviest man in the world. He’s bed-bound - it takes three of them to support him - and his sheets have long since grown into his skin.

To look at, he’s ‘like an enormous meat duvet’. The walls of his parents' bungalow have been knocked through around him, his father has retreated to the loft, and his pathologically devoted mother has gone to a trailer-home. So how has Mal’s brother ended up, broken-hearted and broken-legged, back in the same room? This original novel moves back and forth between the momentous 7,483rd day of Mal’s lie-in and the years preceding it.

Narrated by Mal’s brother, it’s a story less about food than families and the love that sustains and smothers. Bed is brilliantly imagined and rings consistently true.

Read more: www.dailymail.co.uk/home/books/article-2004300/DEBUTS.html

LITERARY DEATH MATCH

On Wednesday 15th June some funny people will gather in a room and read good stuff they've written out loud. I'll also be there. Come and also be there too. Please.

tinyurl.com/3vh6cf2

THE SCOTSMAN

I got interviewed in The Scotsman. It's true, I can prove it. Here it is. Look. Told you.

www.scotsman.com/books/Interview-David-Whitehouse-author.6783150.jp

THE INDEPENDENT

Today someone wrote about Bed in The Independent. It is nice.

www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/features/is-an-award-the-only-way-to-guarantee-an-authors-shelf-life-2294831.html

BED Trailer

BED by David Whitehouse - trailer from James Lees on Vimeo.

MY FIRST REVIEW NOT BY MY MUM - THE TIMES

Mal Ede has been lying in bed for 20 years and is now the fattest man in the world. “He has spread out so far from the nucleus of his skeleton,” his younger brother says, “he is an enormous meat duvet.” Mal’s 100-stone body and the machinery required to keep it alive have literally driven the rest of the family out of the house and into a trailer in the back garden. His younger brother has spent a lifetime in Mal’s shadow. As a child Mal ruined pantomimes and family holidays by suddenly tearing off all his clothes and running amok. As a handsome teenager he won the heart of Lou, the girl adored by his brother. And now Mal has turned their lives into a media circus. “Mal’s death is the only thing that can save this family,” the brother sadly says, “because his life has destroyed it.” Hilarious and tragic; a perfectly brilliant debut.

Kate Saunders

Canongate, 297pp; £11.99.
To buy this book for £10.79 visit thetimes.co.uk/bookshop or call 0845 2712134

Literary Death Match

I'm going to be reading at Literary Death Match on June 15th. It's a great
line-up. Here is what it says about it on their website, and a link so that
you can buy tickets if you wish.

Literary Death Match's Sweet Sixteen episode at Concrete < sponsored by
Picador < is going to be a literary and comedic buzzsaw like nothing you've
ever seen before it. And the talent-packed lineup has us riled with endless
anticipation.

The night's readers will feature the oh-so-lovely Jane Bussman (Brass Eye
writer; author of The Worst Date Ever: War Crimes, Hollywood Heart-Throbs
and Other Abominations), literary heartthrob David Whitehouse (author of
BED), verbal and performative pyrotechnician Dan Simpson, and the
one-of-a-kind John Butler (author of The Tenderloin).

They'll be judged by an all-star trio of arbiters, including TV presenter
and overall hilaritist Emma Kennedy, Guardian culture critic Gareth McLean
and T4 hunk Rick Edwards (of Tool Academy)!

Hosted by LDM creator Todd Zuniga & LDM London producer Suzanne Azzopardi.

Where: Concrete, 56 Shoreditch High Street, London, E1 6JJ (map)
When: Doors at 7, Show at 8:15 (sharp); afterdrinks after.
Cost: £5 preorder (click "Buy Now" above); £8 on the door.

www.literarydeathmatch.com/upcoming-events/june-15-2011.html

I Lied Earlier

Down there I said the Czech Republic's cover of Bed especially for teens looked like something else. It doesn't. It looks like this! Mmmm, donuts.

BED In Holland

This is what Bed will look like in Holland, where it will be published by Contact.

The First Review

The first ever review proper of Bed. From Publishers Weekly in America. It was their pick of the week:

A masterful balance of displaced emotion, black humor, and reportage, this accomplished debut offers an offbeat insight into the lives of a family dealing with morbid obesity. Malcolm "Mal" Ede is the ultimate nonconformist, and, on his 25th birthday, he decides to go to bed and stay there--forever. His increasingly newsworthy... Read on...

Czech Republic Covers for BED

In the Czech Republic, Bed is called Postel. Confusing perhaps for Czech postmen, who have to get up early. The publisher there is called Jota. Here are their covers. The one on the left is the same as the UK one except not written in English, and the one on the right is a special one for the young adult market. Young adults love donuts.

BED In Other Places

Good news about Bed. I've just found out it's going to be published in Turkey and Korea too. Thank you, Turkey and Korea. It'll be coming out in all these places on all of these wonderful publishers:

UK (Canongate)
US & Canada (Scribner)
Australia (Text)
Czech Republic (Jota)
France (Plon)
Italy (ISBN)
Israel (Kinneret-Zmora)
Korea (Minumsa)
Netherlands (Contact)
Turkey (Domingo)

Me And Ben Brooks Had A Chat And What We Said Was

Me and @Ben_Brooks had a chat and what we said was written down. Ben has written a great book. It is called Grow Up and it is out in July, published by Canongate. That is why we had a chat. You can read the chat if you like, it's here:

http://bydavidwhitehouse.tumblr.com/post/4161230341/me-and-ben-brooks-had-a-chat-and-what-we-said-was

Camp Bestival

I'm going to be reading bits of Bed out loud on a stage at Camp Bestival. There'll be lots of good people reading too. They include Jon Ronson, Joe Dunthorne and Laura Dockrill. It's official because it says so here:

tinyurl.com/6d8gn37

There are loads of good bands on as well. It's very exciting, and it's over the weekend of 29/30/31st July. You ought to come to it. We can camp together. You can probably get tickets here:

campbestival.net

BED (US Version) Available On Amazon

The American version of BED is now on US Amazon too. So, if like Oprah Winfrey, Ross, Chandler, Joey, Monica and Garfield you live there, then you should have a look at that. It's got a different cover. Fancy! Click here if you like:

http://tinyurl.com/4gmgomc

BED Available On Amazon

The book I wrote, BED, is on Amazon. This has never happened to me before. Makes it all kind of official. By official, I mean that maybe now my mum will believe me. If she could use the internet. Click on this, have a look, and if you're with her, show my mum.

http://tinyurl.com/67daslv