Terms & Conditions

By Robert Glancy

Frank has been in a car accident*. The doctor tells him he lost his spleen, but Frank believes he has lost more. He is missing memories – of the people around him, of the history they share and of how he came to be in the crash. All he remembers is that he is a lawyer who specialises in small print. But when Oscar, his brother, takes the family company into business with an inventively cruel corporation** and Alice, his wife, starts to seem oddly unlike the woman he remembers, Frank's world starts to unspool and the terms and conditions that he has lived his life by*** begin to change.

*apparently quite a serious one

**we can't tell you what it's called for legal reasons, but believe us, it's evil

***and which are rarely in his favour

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
• Release date: Feb 13, 2014
• ISBN: 9781408852194

Robert Glancy

Robert Glancy was born in Zambia and raised in Malawi. At fourteen he moved from Africa to Edinburgh then went on to study history at Cambridge. His first novel, Terms & Conditions, was published by Bloomsbury in 2014 to critical acclaim. He has recently been awarded the Grimshaw Sargeson Fellowship in New Zealand, where he currently lives with his wife and children. @RobertGlancy

Reviews for Terms & Conditions

[dpappas_25 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

For if the devil's in the detail, I'm the devil's ghost-writer, typing cautionary tales in font so small they're rendered invisible. You can barely see them and when you do it's too late.I have been wanting to read this book for a little while. This is one of those books that I knew I would love even before I started reading it. When I finished it I was mad at myself that I hadn't read it sooner. Frank is a lawyer whose job it is to write terms and conditions for all kinds of contracts. Frank gets into a car crash and after the crash gets amnesia. This book shows you just how Frank deals with his amnesia and all the many terms and conditions of his life. I really liked Frank right from the start of the book. I just loved his sense of humor. Frank is as clueless about his life as readers are in the beginning. I felt bad for him that he couldn't remember anything and because it seemed like something had happened that no one was telling him about. Once he started to remember everything that had happened I liked him even more. I felt this book had great secondary characters as well. Whether I loved or hated a character, I still found myself wanting to read about them. I especially loved Doug and Malcolm, but maybe that is because they were the nicest to Frank. I don't want to spoil anything for anyone wanting to read this but I wasn't really shocked with what was revealed when Frank started remembering everything. It was a bit predictable (but that didn't stop me from enjoying it). I was very pleased with where Frank ended up at the end. I didn't want the book to end but since it had to end, that was a really good ending.

[shelleyraec · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

My Thoughts:Terms & Conditions is a quirky*, black humoured story of a man** who lost his mind***, then regained his soul.***** Makes extensive use of footnotes** Franklyn Shaw, contract lawyer aka Executive X. Husband of corporate bimbo, Alice. Brother of conscienceless prat, Oscar and Malcolm, who is missing his pinkie finger.*** Amnesia as a result of a car accident while in the midst of a nervous breakdown**** This will all make much more sense when you have read the book. Which you should do.

[toobusyreading · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

“My name is Frank Shaw and I write contracts for a living. I'm not proud of what I do. In my bleaker moments I believe I'm the death of an essential part of humanity.”Poor ol' Frank. He awakes from a car crash with amnesia only to find that everyone tells him everything is going to be fine, but no one will tell him the truth. So he has to find out who he is, and the finding is not always fun or pretty. Does he really love this woman who claims to be his wife?This book is clever. It is filled with footnotes, those bothersome things that, like the fine print Frank spends his life writing, are usually ignored. There are footnotes to the footnotes, and footnotes to those and.... Don't ignore any of them – the crux of the story often lies in them. The font of the footnotes, as in his contracts, get tinier and tinier. Every chapter has the heading, “Terms & Conditions of...” something. Terms and conditions rule Frank's life.Frank is a very unreliable narrator, partly because he is incapable of being a reliable one. But the fine print doesn't lie.Despite his messed up life, his career, his failure to live his true life, I really, really liked the guy. I wanted to know what happens next. But you'd think a smart guy like Frank, even if he makes poor personal decisions, would know the difference between subjective and objective nouns and pronouns. He apparently doesn't. Come on, Frank, learn when it whould be “I” and when it should be “me.”This book is quick to read and kept me interested and involved throughout. It's a feel-good book that is witty and fun and bares the soul of a basically good man.I was given a copy of this book for review.