Enderby Outside

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Enderby Outside
Image of book cover
Cover of 1st edition
Author Anthony Burgess
Country United Kingdom
Language English
Series Enderby
Genre(s) Comic novel
Publisher William Heinemann
Released May 1968
Media Type Print (Hardcover)
Pages 243 (Hardcover edition)
ISBN ISBN 0-434-09808-6 (hardcover edition)
Preceded by Inside Mr. Enderby
Followed by The Clockwork Testament, or Enderby's End

Enderby Outside is the second novel in a series by Anthony Burgess. It was first published in 1968 in London by William Heinemann.

[edit] Plot summary

After a failed suicide attempt at the very end of 'Inside Mr. Enderby', the second novel opens with the protagonist under psychiatric care and working as a bartender at a large London hotel. Under the name of 'Hogg' (his stepmother's maiden name, we learn), he is persuaded to renounce the creation of poetry as an adolescent preoccupation and to pursue useful work.

Hogg-Enderby, bereft of his stock of capital and now divorced, is forced to earn his keep and finds that the poetic muse has left him. He also finds that his work has been plagiarised, again, by a certain rock singer named Yod Crewsey - whose band, the Crewsey Fixers, are managed and groomed by his former wife.

After being implicated in the public murder of Crewsey during a banquet at the hotel, Enderby-Hogg goes on the run to Morocco - to the bar of a rival poet named Rawcliffe. Assuming control and ownership of Rawcliffe's property upon his death, and the death of his 'Hogg' persona, Enderby realises that his muse is returning.