Comrade Fox: Low-living in Revolutionary Russia - The Life and Times of Archibald Brinsley Fox

The author was dropped by his publisher, Hodder & Stoughton, for wanting to write a dark comedy set in Revolutionary Russia. He wrote two in the end, published here as Comrade Fox and Smiting the Bear. He concedes these historical novels are probably not suitable for those extraordinarily sensitive readers who are easily offended and might even feel unsafe when confronted with the unwoke reality of bygone centuries.

"I never gave a monkeys for Marxism or Monarchism or Liberalism or Socialism or any ism. I've always been leery of anyone brandishing an ism - an excuse to howl at the moon if you ask me. And they're all moralists too, always got it in for someone else, usually someone like me." - Archibald Brinsley Fox.

Brinsley Fox, adventurer, shirker, thief, womaniser and cavalier poser, was never the stuff of heroes. But Lenin wasn't to know that when he invited Fox along to the Russian Revolution...

It is April 1917 when Fox breezes into Petrograd, during the Spring of Hope. He personally hopes to seduce Lenin's mistress - the bewitching Inessa Armand - and pinch a Fabergé Egg.

Meanwhile the Russian economy is going to hell in a handcart, mob rule is on the rise, and the Great War is being lost hand over fist. The place is falling apart. Yet drink and be merry is the order of the optimistic day; ideal for a man who believes that fun and moral fibre are mutually exclusive.

Alas, the mood of Russia darkens over the months, and Fox's leisurely life unravels. Fleeing a brute he cuckolded, vicious conspirators and an arrest warrant, Fox charges pillar to post around collapsing Russia. From the Eastern Front - the most disastrous front in the history of warfare - into the fateful July Uprising. From a cabal of counter-revolutionaries to a botched break-in at the Catherine Palace. From a lynch mob in a Dark Age village to a bizarre, fledgling republic. From helping 'Comrade Lenin' with his ludicrous, little coup to being hounded by rabid Red Guards bent on skinning him. And onwards into the final death throes of hope...

Along the way Fox has to face anarchic shoot-outs, violent Cossacks, dangerously desperate women, blithe fanatics, deadly disease, sinister river-gangs, hordes of rapists and even some sensible innocents, wondering where it will all end...

Providing a potted history of the Russian Revolution, this is a diary of horrors and heroics, written with verve and style, and scant regard for moral enhancement.

Praise for Hennessey's first novel, Drowning in the Shallows, a contemporary satire and successful seller in the author's native Scotland: -

"... a terrific story... one of the funniest, sharpest debuts of the year - dry, witty and cynical as hell."
- The Big Issue

"From the crackling start to the end of this debut novel the wit and pace are relentless and magnetic... the sexual swagger which underpins it all gives it style and presence."
- Scotland on Sunday

"Brilliant, intelligent and consuming writer... things ebb and flow through a series of exquisite interior monologues while his control of pace and tone are remarkably mature."
- The List

"An unflinching, brilliantly observed debut novel of love and sex."
- Publishing News

"... writes with tremendous energy and delivers excellent lines, supporting the manic comedy... Hennessey tells it with style."
- Sunday Herald