Philip Hook fought off stiff competition from best-selling novelist Jilly Cooper and Conservative politician Edwina Currie.
The passage of Hook's book "The Stonebreakers" that clinched his victory included the lines: "Their jaws ground in feverish mutual mastication. Saliva and sweat. Sweat and saliva. There was a purposeful shedding of clothing." The magazine The Literary Review awarded the prize.
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