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The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 The front cover of the US first hardcover edition of The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul. |
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| Author | Douglas Adams |
|---|---|
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Series | Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency |
| Genre(s) | Comedy, Science fiction novel |
| Publisher | William Heinemann |
| Released | 10 October 1988 |
| Media type | Print (Hardcover & Paperback) & Audio Book (Cassette, CD) |
| Pages | 256 pp (hardcover), 320 pp (paperback) |
| ISBN | ISBN 0-434-00921-0 (hardcover edition) & ISBN 0-671-74251-5 (US paperback edition) |
| Preceded by | Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency |
| Followed by | The Salmon of Doubt |
The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul is a 1988 science fiction detective novel by Douglas Adams. It is the second book by Adams featuring private detective Dirk Gently, the first being Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency. The novel's title is a phrase which appeared in Adams's earlier novel Life, The Universe and Everything, but the novels are not otherwise related.
It features a surreal plot progression, with the characters accepting all sorts of bizarre events as commonplace or at least reasonable. It frequently features humour built around strange situations and repeated themes, one connection it has, rather unsurprisingly, with The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy in its many incarnations.
Dirk Gently, an alleged "holistic detective", has happened upon what he thinks is a rather comfortable situation. A ridiculously wealthy man in the record industry has retained him, spinning a ludicrous story about being stalked by a seven-foot-tall, green-eyed, scythe-wielding monster. Dirk pretends to understand the man's ravings involving potatoes and a contract coming due; in reality, however, Dirk is musing about what he might do if he actually receives payment for his "services". Get rid of his refrigerator, for one; the seemingly innocuous appliance has become the centerpiece of a dangerous showdown between himself and his cleaning woman. The apparent seriousness of his client's claims becomes clear when Dirk arrives several hours late for an appointment to find a swarm of police around his client's estate. The aforementioned client is found in a room locked from within, his head neatly removed and rotating on a turntable.
Nearly incapacitated by great thudding pangs of guilt, Dirk resolves to belatedly begin taking his now-late client's wild claims seriously. During his investigation, Gently encounters exploding airport check-in counters, the gods of Norse mythology, insulting horoscopes, a sinister nursing home, a rhinophagic eagle, an I Ching calculator (to which everything calculated above the value of 4 is apparently 'a suffusion of yellow'), an omnipotent being who gives his powers to a lawyer in exchange for clean linen, and an attractive American woman who enjoys getting angry when she can't get pizza delivered in London.
- 1988, UK, William Heinemann (ISBN 0-434-00921-0), Pub date 10 October 1988, Hardcover
- 1989, US, Simon & Schuster (ISBN 0-671-62583-7), Pub date 1 March 1989, Hardcover
- 1989, UK, Chivers P (ISBN 0-86220-323-6), Pub date 3 October 1989, Hardcover
- 1989, UK, Pan Macmillan (ISBN 0-330-30955-2), Pub date 13 October 1989, Paperback
- 1990, US, Pocket Books (ISBN 0-671-69404-9), Pub date 2 January 1990, Paperback
- 1991, US, Pocket Books (ISBN 0-671-74251-5), Pub date ? February 1991, Paperback
- 1998, UK, ISIS Audio Books (ISBN 0-7531-0473-3), Pub date ? October 1998, ?
- 2006, US, Phoenix Audio (rerelease, ISBN 1-59777-008-6), Pub date January 2006, compact disc
| Preceded by: |
Series: | Followed by: |
|---|---|---|
| Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency | Dirk Gently series | The Salmon of Doubt |