The Accidental Collector

Winner of the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize 2021 Set in the world of contemporary art, Guy Kennaway's new novel delivers his trademark absurdities and laugh out loud moments. As the globe's most successful super-dealer, Herman Gertsch spent his charmed life jetting between his galleries in Zurich, London and New York, fawned over by artists, curators, politicians and the uber-rich. As Herman's empire grew, nothing seemed to get in his way, until he made the calamitous decision to open a gallery in a rural English backwater. Here, Herman encountered John 'Brother' Burn, a penniless hippy known as the slipperiest man in south Somerset, and therefore the western hemisphere. In the riotous comedy of errors that follows, Kennaway pours mistaken identity, Amazonian tribesmen, Swiss food, DMT, Arab Royalty, million dollar paintings and worthless tat onto a spin painting of a story that dazzles with surprises and leaves you feeling reassuringly warm about art and life.