An Observer book of the year HAUNTED! By endless tiny humiliations STRUGGLING! To resurrect the corpse of his literary career ENSNARED! In a loving yet perplexing marriage Anthony Mc Gowan is a man at odds with the universe Stumbling from one improbable fiasco to the next he patrols the mean streets of West Hampstead like some unholy cross between Columbo J Alfred Prufrock & a common tramp pondering the very stuff of life itself For Mc Gowan that's holed socks unsatisfactory packed lunches broken washing machines Kierkegaard the eccentricities of the British Library liver salts Morrissey & disapproving ladies on trains Relentlessly honest exquisitely funny The Art of Failing is a paean to the glory & desperation of everyday existence