One warm July morning Mr Phillips climbs out of bed, leaving Mrs Phillips dozing.
So why is Mr Phillips, a cautious middle-aged accountant, not behind his desk calculating the financial consequences of redundancies or recommending the savings to be made from more responsible use of yellow sticky note pads?
John Lanchester was born in Hamburg in 1962. He has written four novels,
The Debt to Pleasure,
Mr Phillips, Fragrant Harbour, and
Capital, and two works of non-fiction:
Family Romance, a memoir; and
Whoops!: Why everyone owes everyone and no one can pay. His books have won the Hawthornden Prize, the Whitbread First Novel Prize, E.M Forster Award, and the Premi Llibreter, been longlisted for the Booker Prize, and been translated into twenty-five languages. He is married, has two children and lives in London.