“On the opposite wall was a Damien Hirst spot painting, bought by Arabella after a decent bonus season. Roger's considered view of the painting, looking at it from aesthetic, art-historical, interior-design, and psychological points of view, was that it had cost forty-seven thousand pounds, plus VAT.”

British journalist and novelist

John Henry Lanchester is a British journalist and novelist. His reviews appear frequently in the London Review of Books. He is known for writing journalism and fiction, with book reviews as a regular part of his work. The available facts place him chiefly as a contemporary British writer whose name is closely associated with criticism and literary journalism.