CARL WAXMAN IS COMING BACK.

Carl Waxman had it all. Money, status, good looks and a network of well-connected friends.

Then the redundancies came.

Our hero washed up in a second-rate public-sector teaching job, unable and unwilling to surrender the lifestyle, the salary or the swagger. Facing financial and mental meltdown in a workplace built entirely of safe spaces, Carl does the only thing a man of his talents can.

He schemes his way back to the top.

What follows is an increasingly deranged descent through sadomasochism, Islamic terrorism, radical feminism and equality-and-diversity training. It is a journey that erodes Carl’s manhood and sanity in roughly equal measure, transforming him from hedonistic playboy into a gender-non-specific establishment feminist.

It will have you either crying with laughter or reaching for a non-crime hate incident report.

THE BOOK NOBODY WOULD TOUCH

I originally published the novel under the pseudonym Phil Hipside in 2014, when it was called The Political Correcting of Carl Waxman.

Mark Stanton, then at Jenny Brown Associates and later a co-founder of The North Literary Agency, read the manuscript and said:

“Literally the most enjoyable thing I’ve read since becoming an agent. I’ve laughed my arse off throughout.”

Mark went on to represent award-winning and bestselling authors including David Solomons, whose My Brother Is a Superhero won the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize. He knows a thing or two about books.

So he touted mine around publishers.

Nobody would touch it.

One response, relayed through Mark, described it as:

“Glaringly offensive.”

I’ve never been prouder of a rejection.

Eventually, Mark and I reached the awkward conclusion that the traditional publishing world probably wasn’t ready for Carl Waxman. I self-published the novel instead.

Later, a small independent publisher called BNBS picked it up. Then BNBS went bust, the book disappeared and I did what any sensible author would do in those circumstances.

I sold my house, bought a boat and sailed around the world with my wife and three kids.

Eight years and 40,000 miles later, I came home to discover that many of the things my novel had spent 67,000 words taking the piss out of had grown wildly out of proportion and acquired a name.

WOKE.

The book wasn’t too offensive.

It was just early.

CARL’S SECOND COMING

I recently read the novel again for the first time in years. And it made me laugh all over again. Most surprising of all was how much more relevant it felt now than when I wrote it.

So I’m resurrecting Carl Waxman.

I’m not simply sticking a new cover on the old book. Carl deserves more than that.

I’m tightening the story, sharpening the jokes, updating what needs updating, cutting what no longer works but also trying very hard not to make it too respectable.

The new edition will have a new title, a new cover and, probably, some new ways to offend people. I’m planning to publish it in early 2027.

HELP BRING BACK CARL WAXMAN

Be the first to see the new title and cover, receive occasional dispatches from the rewriting process and find out as soon as pre-orders open.

No relentless newsletter. No daily political sermon. Just Carl Waxman, gradually becoming somebody else’s problem again.