Crawley author shortlisted for top award

46% Better Than Dave is published by Raven Crest Books, who also published his two previous novels. It came out last October.

The winner will be announced on June 24.

“I’m still a little in shock, to be honest. But I’m incredibly excited. Every year, I follow the shortlisted books and winners with great interest. Some of my very favourite books have either won it or been shortlisted in the past. Books like Salmon Fishing in the Yemen by Paul Torday, Cooking with Fernet Branca by James Hamilton-Paterson, A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian by Marina Lewycka and Life of Pi by Yann Martel. For my book to be considered in the same category as those titles is really a dream come true.

“It would be absolutely incredible to win. It’s the biggest award for comic fiction, named after one of the funniest writers ever, PG Wodehouse. Some really big-name writers have either won it or been shortlisted in the past, from Irvine Welsh to Alan Bennett, Helen Fielding, Terry Pratchett and many others.”

Alastair added: “46% Better Than Dave, was written mostly at home, although parts of it were written in different coffee shops in Crawley. I tend to favour Starbucks in Queen’s Square and the café in Waterstones.

“46% Better Than Dave is about a man, Dave Brookman, who gets caught up in a funny spiral of jealousy when a new next-door neighbour moves in who happens to have exactly the same name. Not only that, he’s the same age, grew up in the same town (Crawley) and even works in the same industry.

“There is one big difference though – this new Dave is vastly more successful in every way. The original Dave gets caught up in a ridiculous game of one-upmanship, which soon spirals out of control, with hilarious results.

“It’s taken me about three years to write. I think it will appeal to anyone who’s ever wondered about their place in the world and has ever felt like life is unfair. It’s also pretty funny, so it will appeal to people who like a good laugh when they read.

“The idea for the book came to me as a simple thought: What would it be like to live next door to yourself… only a better version of you? It was also partly inspired by a funny story my friend told me. He has a pretty unusual surname, but bizarrely another customer at his opticians had the exact same name. And on more than one occasion, they were given each other’s glasses by mistake. I thought that was funny, and it sort of led me to the plot for this book.

“I really enjoyed writing this book, and it was lots of fun thinking up the more humorous, wacky bits.

“This is a stand-alone book and I have no sequels planned. I am, however, currently working on a sequel to my second novel, Killing Dylan.

“46% Better Than Dave is my third book. My first novel, The Unexpected Vacation of George Thring, is a humorous crime novel about a man who runs away from home by accident and gets into all sorts of funny misadventures.”

“My second novel, Killing Dylan, is about a disgruntled, failed crime writer who has to use his limited detective skills to find out who is trying to kill his friend, and why.

“I’ve been a professional writer for around 20 years. I started working on magazines, I’ve done various other writing jobs over the years, and I currently work as senior copywriter for a marketing agency called Ogilvy. I’ve always written stories in my spare time, and always had an ambition to write a novel, which I achieved with my first book in 2014.”

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