The funniest book I read last year was a short novella called Man Overbored by Paul Laverty – and he’s just released a new comic novella called Cider Country.
As with Man Overbored, Cider Country is about a motley group of misfits – although instead of being on a sinking cruise ship, this time they’re working in an apple orchard for a pittance.
Basic plot: Two aging gangsters wait – and wait – and then wait some more while menacing strangers – at a Spanish port in the hope of finding a runaway daughter who they adore. While waiting, they reminisce on their many adventures and mistakes
Mini review: Night Boat to Tangier has been widely acclaimed, become a bestseller, and I’m probably one of the few who weren’t immediately impressed.
It took me a long, long time to get into this novel, which defies easy categorisation (Is it a comedy? Is it a suspense thriller? Is it simply taking the piss?) – but when I did, I loved it.
For me the hurdle was the delusional and pompous narrator, Tarquin Winot, who seems like a cross between the TV character Frasier and Ignatius from Confederacy of Dunces – but with a serial killer edge. Although Confederacy is one of my favourite novels, and Frasier one of my favourite comedies, in this book it just seemed … well, like I’ve seen and read it all before. I was wrong, but that was my initial impression.
I’ve known so many self-destructive and obsessive people in my life – including, perhaps, myself when I younger – that Pizza Girl resonated with me.
Despite having a loving mother and devoted boyfriend, the narrator – a pregnant 18-year-old who works at a pizzeria – is unhappy without knowing why.
Two completely different novels continually came to mind while reading Self Care, a funny and incisive satirical tale about two female entrepreneurs who create Richual, a social media company for women who want to take better care of themselves (and how that company, like so many others, is anything but nurturing).
If you need something light to read over the holidays, you’d be hard pressed to find anything funnier than Man Overbored, a novella by Paul J. Laverty.
This comedy is so short it can practically be inhaled – but what a rush it gives.
It’s safe to say I became obsessed to an almost unhealthy degree with The Spill – or more specifically, with its characters.
To some degree The Spill reminded me of The Corrections and The Slap – both largeish novels that deal with complex relationships and families, and that pull you into the different characters’ worlds.
I liked The Third Hotel. At least, I think I did.
Everything about this book makes me pause for thought. It’s both easy and difficult to read, clear cut and yet confusing.
Just like the intro to this review, it’s conflicting and uncertain.
Oh Godfrey, as Olive Kitteridge likes to exclaim, I adored this book.
Olive is the blunt, borderline rude retired teacher at the heart of this novel (though in many ways it’s more a collection of interconnected stories), and you grow to love her the more you get to know her – especially when she throws caution to the wind and starts dating Jack, an equally blunt and pot-bellied old man who likes tooling around in his sports car while taunting police officers and drinking whiskey.
I have three confessions to make.
The first is I’ve never read Kathy Acker. This is probably my loss.
The second is you probably need to have read Kathy Acker to enjoy Crudo, which is written in Kathy’s voice.
The third is I had no idea what Crudo was about when I bought it. Instead, I simply did what I normally do in a bookshop: read the first two pages and, if I don’t shudder in disgust, buy the book.