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A breakneck comic tour-de-force set in 1980s Hollywood, about one man's quest to get his hands on a box of bawdy love letters
Elliot Weiner is a historian with a passion for Morris dancing and Warren Harding, ‘the shallowest President in history'. After Weiner receives a research grant to write a book on Harding’s tumultuous life, he gets wind of a trunkful of the twenty-ninth president’s billets-doux, rumoured to be guarded by his ancient mistress on her declining Hollywood Hills estate. There's no depth to which he won't stoop, no moral boundary he won't traverse and no preposterous scheme he won't machinate to get at them.
First published in 1983, My Search for Warren Harding garnered immediate acclaim and was described by the Los Angeles Review of Books as 'a classic picaresque novel in the tradition of Cervantes'; Robert Plunket’s original fans included Amy Sedaris, Larry David and Madonna. In this deliciously bonkers novel, The Aspern Papers meets A Confederacy of Dunces meets Sunset Boulevard meets pure, glorious, hair-raising farce.
Author: Warren Harding
Paperback Published 6 May 2025 304 pages
One of the most original comic novels of the past half century - The New Yorker
There’s a subversive thrill to reading this novel... Elliot Weiner is a snob. He’s vain, shallow and shameless. He’s lazy and untrustworthy. He’s a bitch too, quick to make an acid observation. And these are just some of the reasons why he’s a brilliant narrator. Who wouldn’t want to spend 300 pages in his company? - The Times