By the author of Ducks, Newburyport, shortlisted for the 2019 Booker Prize, Goldsmiths Prize and Saltire Fiction Book of the Year Award Bach, sculpture, plastic surgery, public speaking and a New York love story like no other - this is Lucy Ellmann''s most extraordinary work of art to date ''Bolshy, life-affirming, feminist and energeticIt makes you long to chuck your job, gulp oysters and run naked through the surf'' Sunday Times ''A wildly hilarious, modern film noir in fiction form'' Sunday Telegraph Its Christmas Eve in Manhattan. Harrison Hanafan, noted plastic surgeon, falls on his assSo far, so good.Ya cant sit there all day, buddy, looking up peoples skirts!chides a weird gal in a coat like a duvet - Mimi! She kindly conjures for him the miracle of a taxi. Recuperating in his apartment with Schubert, Bette Davis, and a foundling cat, Harrison adds items to his lifes work, a List of Melancholy Things (Walmart, puppetry, Velcro, whale eyes, shrimp-eating contests...