Milo Burke -- husband to a 'touched-out' wife, father to a three-year-old son, fund-raising officer at a third-tier university -- has just joined the swelling ranks of the unemployed. As he grasps after odd jobs to support his wife and child, Milo is contacted by Purdy Stuart, a wealthy, one-time university friend with a sinister agenda. It is the start of a hilarious and harrowing odyssey through several degrees of peculiarly 21st-century hell -- a journey recorded by Milo with the caustic eloquence that is his only means of defence.
Hailed as the first great 'post-Iraq' novel, The Ask has been a critical sensation on both sides of the Atlantic. It is a dazzlingly entertaining read that anatomises our crisis-ridden times with equal part ferocity and compassion.
