VINTAGE BOOKS

Vintage Podcast goes on the road with graphic novelist Joff Winterhart to talk about illustration, storytelling and see the sights of London!

Take a look at the book itself: http://po.st/DrivingShortDistances

Follow us on twitter: https://twitter.com/vintagebooks

Sign up to our bookish newsletter to hear all about our new releases, see exclusive extracts and win prizes: https://www.penguin.co.uk/vintage

More about Driving Short Distances by Joff Winterhart

Sam is 27 and needs to get a job. Keith, who claims to be a second cousin of his (absent) father, offers him one. On Keith’s card it says he does ‘distribution and delivery’, which seems to consist of ‘a lot of driving around, getting out of the car for a few minutes and then getting back in’, Sam tells his mother. And so the days go by, Keith driving to a trading estate, ducking into a portakabin, all the while telling Sam stories about his first boss, Geoff Crozier, his mentor in distribution and delivery. As the weeks pass, Sam gets to know Keith’s friends, flirty Hazel-Claire from whom they buy two pasties every day at lunchtime, a variety of receptionists, and a few tantalising secrets from Keith’s past…

As in Days of the Bagnold Summer, Joff Winterhart is a master at depicting ordinary life in all its utterly poignant and funny mundanity.

Driving Short Distances is the new book by Joff Winterhart, whose first graphic novel, Days of the Bagnold Summer, was described by Posy Simmonds as ‘original, funny, touching and beautifully observed’ and was shortlisted for the Costa Award for Best Novel.

"In Driving Short Distances Joff Winterhart has created an unforgettable central player, Keith Nutt, who deserves to join Keith Talent in the short but potent list of great British literary Keiths. He is an unforgettable character, beautifully drawn and exquisitely written, and he confirms Winterhart as one of the most talented graphic novelists in the UK." (Zadie Smith)

"Masterpiece is an overused word in reviews and ordinarily I avoid it… In this case, however, it is the only one that will do. Winterhart has delivered a perfect book, as good as mostly much better than any of the regular novels I’ve read so far this year. Like his first… its characters are superbly drawn. But with its themes of depression and its tender examination of the ways men talk (and fail to talk) to one another, it has a depth that book perhaps lacked. Days of the Bagnold Summer was shortlisted for the 2012 costa Novel award. This time around, Winterhart deserves to win it." (Rachel Cooke Observer)

Read more at http://po.st/DrivingShortDistances