The Late Hector Kipling

The Late Hector Kipling is a novel written by English actor David Thewlis. The book was released in the UK in hardback on September 7, 2007 and released on paperback July 4, 2008. In the US the book was released (hardback version) November 6, 2007.

Plot summary

Hector Kipling is an artist who is famous for his ovarian paintings of big heads. When visiting the Tate Modern in London with one of his best friends and fellow artists, Lenny Snook, he breaks down upon seeing a Munch, which Lenny explains as Stendhal Syndrome. Several days later he visits his parents in his native Blackpool with his Greek girlfriend Eleni. Eleni is four days late, but when she and Hector have sex on the settee that night, she bleeds through, leaving a large stain on it.

Another of Hector's closest friends and also an artist, Kirk Church, is found to have a brain tumor. Hector finds himself longing for someone close to him to die, because that would mean that Hector, as one left behind, would receive much sympathy. When Eleni's mother Sofia is in a kitchen accident -- being burned with boiling fat and falling into the resulting fire -- Eleni heads for Crete. Hector and Eleni are in a fight shortly before this, because Hector makes the implication that he would be glad if Sofia dies. He denies this, though, because if Eleni's mother would die, Eleni would be the one to receive all the sympathy.

Meanwhile, Hector's own father has ended up in hospital as well: Hector's mother Connie threw away the blood-stained settee and bought a second-hand one out of the paper for 850 pounds. The new settee smells of cigarette smoke and this, combined with the amount of money spent on it, is too much for Hector's father to take.

During an open poetry night at a café, Hector's eye falls on an American punk poet named Rosa Flood. The two meet again during the opening of an exhibition of Hector's large head paintings. At that exhibition, an assailant badly damages Hector's paining "God Bolton", which depicts Hector's previous neighbour Godfrey Bolton shortly after his suicide by hanging. Rosa takes Hector home to comfort him and the two end up having sex.

The assailant meets up with Hector to apologize and introduces himself as Freddie Monger; Godfrey Bolton was Monger's father who severely abused him. To make up for the damage done he will buy the settee off of Hector's parents' hands without letting them know Hector is behind it, so as to get Hector's father out of hospital. While he does buy the settee with Hector's money, he also robs his parents of 15,000 pounds and kills their pet dog, the remains of which are later found inside the settee.

Eleni makes an unexpected return home and announces her mother has died. She leaves again in anger when she finds Rosa in the bathtub. Monger reveals his father's death wasn't a suicide and says he only wants one thing from Hector: blood. Monger ends up killing Lenny and Rosa, however, when he mistakes Lenny for Hector who was staying at his house. Hector ends up shooting Monger with the latter's gun. He does not call the police, as he yelled out "I will kill you both" to Lenny and Rosa when they left together earlier that night while a policeman stood nearby. Instead, he heads for the Tate Britain and paints the words "L'acte Surréaliste le plus simple est de marcher dans une peuplée avec un revolver chargé, et de tirer au hasard" on the wall with blood. He hides inside one of Lenny's artworks (a hole in the floor of the museum) for the rest of the night and jumps out in the morning when Brian Sewell translates the words to mean "The simplest act of surrealism is to walk into a crowded street with a loaded revolver, and open the fire at random." Hector does just that and kills several art critics who had gathered for the opening of Lenny Snook's exhibition.

From inside Wandsworth Prison Hector relates the rest of events: not only was he charged with killing the art critics, but with killing Rosa and Lenny as well. Hector has decided to let it go. Reactions to his mass murder are varied, from outright disgust to admiration. Hector's father has died in hospital upon hearing of his son's deeds and his mother has committed suicide by throwing herself in the Irish Sea. He has never heard from Eleni again and hopes she never learned of what he had done, because then there would be still one person in the world who loves him, even a little bit. In the end, Hector wishes for nothing but something to write with, so that he can write down his story.

External links

• William Monahan interviews David Thewlis (2007-10-15). "Fiction (With a Twist of Lennon)". BlackBook magazine. http://www.blackbookmag.com/features/comments/fiction-with-a-twist-of-lennon1/. Retrieved 2007-10-20.