reviewed on show by Malcolm Martland november 2011
From the Back Cover
Tony Webster and his clique first met Adrian Finn at school. Sex-hungry and book-hungry, they would navigate the girl-less sixth form together, trading in affectations, in-jokes, rumour and wit. Maybe Adrian was a little more serious than the others, certainly more intelligent, but they all swore to stay friends for life.
My Review
I first read of this book in the newspapers as the winner of this year’s Booker Prize for Fiction, apparently with some controversy that it was too readable to be considered and even suggestions that a literature prize for more serious writing should be set up. Well I think readability is usually a good thing in literature.
It is a story about friends, starting at school, Tony, Colin, Alex and Adrian. They take pleasure in rankling the teachers for fun. When asked what a particular poem was about one, Adrian, gives a serious answer “Eros and Thanatos” (love and death) while another thinks it was just a poem about a barn owl! Typical posh boys’ school stuff! One day at assembly the head informs them that Robson of the Science Sixth has died and rumours fly around that he had got his girlfriend pregnant and hanged himself leaving a poignant suicide note “Sorry, Mum”. The four boys far from showing compassion just think that Robson was damn lucky firstly for having a girlfriend at all and secondly for having had sex with her!
The boys leave school, Adrian to go to Cambridge, Tony (whose story it is) to Bristol, Colin to Sussex and Alex goes into his father’s business. They promise to stay in contact. Tony finds himself a girlfriend, the fiery Veronica, and we are informed for quite a few pages and in some detail of how frustrated he becomes with her sexual policy apparently being “as tightly guarded as a fisheries protection zone”. Clearly the author is referring to UK not Spanish agencies! He meets her parents and brother in an uncomfortable weekend and escapes almost unscathed. Tony takes her to meet his pals in London, it turns out Adrian and Veronica’s brothers are both studying the same subject – Moral Sciences (yawn!) at Cambridge! Predictably Tony and Veronica split up, Tony managing, just, not to throw himself off Clifton Suspension Bridge and hey what a surprise she starts going out with Adrian! News of Adrian’s suicide comes as a complete shock!
Many years pass, a career in arts administration (double yawn!), marriage, fatherhood, divorce. Then a letter comes for Tony from a solicitor. Veronica’s mother has left him £500 in her will, and his friend Adrian’s diary, the latter currently being held by Veronica who is unwilling to give it up. There follows an account of Tony’s attempts to find Veronica and the diary with considerable retrospectives on their lives.
A well written, thoughtful, humorous, tragic and very male orientated novel. There is a surprising ending, but you’ll have to read it yourself to find out what happens.
Malcolm Martland, broadcast on Radio Scilly 107.9FM, 24 November 2011
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