This is a charming and joyous book which affirms the pleasure that can be found in the simple routines of life. There were moments when the style reminded me of 'kitchen sink' novels from the 1950s and 1960s such as The Lowlife by Alexander Baron and a couple of slim novels by Wolf Mankowitz: Make Me an Offer and A Kid for Two Farthings.
Honza, a gay man, a writer and wannabe novelist, takes a lodger to help with the bills. Andy moves in. Andy is childlike in his simple pleasures: he eats baked beans on toast, watches telly, drinks beer. Together, they look after Nicholas, Honza's little nephew: there are delightful descriptions of the innocent fun to be found entertaining children. But there are clouds on the horizon. Nicholas's mother plans to take him to London with her. Then Andy announces he has killed a man.
The plot is a slow burner. Gummerson takes his time to build up the characters. Nevertheless, I found it a page turner because of the way the author drops in little clues to keep the reader trying to solve the enigma that is Andy. It even flirts towards the end with thriller genre.
Much of the writing is unaffected and innocent. There is a significant amount of explicit gay sex, but I found that too to be (most of the time, when it was good sex) joyous.
I hardly ever laugh aloud, but there were one or two moments in this book when I could not restrain an audible chuckle. Such as when, in chapter seven, four-year-old Nicholas, having told his Mum: "Andy's having a piss" is reproved with the word: "manners" and replies "Please. Andy's having a piss. Thank you." Or, in chapter eight, when teenager Martin, having been taught how to put on a condom on a carrot and told to practise, asks to borrow a carrot because his Mum only using tinned ones. "'I didn't mean on the carrot,' says Andy." Or when in chapter fifteen, Andy goes to A&E to have a cork removed from his rectum. "'How long?' said the nurse. And held up his thumb and middle finger indicating a distance. ... 'No,' said the nurse. Deadpan. 'How long ago did it happen?'"
Selected quotes:
Delightful, well-written, entertaining and heart-warming.
Drew Gummerson has also written:
- “I was beginning to realize how cold it was. I had goosebumps on my arms, legs, and was starting to suffer from cryonics of the balls.” (Ch 1)
- “This wasn't a voice that was easily mistakable. It was an inharmonious mix of Leo Sayer practising scales and a seventeenth-century castrato mid-op.” (Ch 1)
- “Queues are good places to meet people. Even the corniest of lines in a queue smacks of the naturalism of a sentence in a novel by Emile Zola.” (Ch 7)
- “As a stripper Dark Angel wasn't bad. He had the body of a gladiator, the moves of a ballerina suffering from steroid abuse. It was Schwarzenegger doing Swan Lake for the Swedish soft porn industry.” (Ch 7)
- “Showers are the casual sex of washing. No foreplay is required, no expensive offerings. You just dive in there, get what you want and then leave with barely a thankyou. Baths however require commitment.” (Ch 12)
- “Graham worked for a local newspaper. Cliches were his bread and butter.” (Ch 16)
Delightful, well-written, entertaining and heart-warming.
Drew Gummerson has also written:
- Me and Mickie James
- Seven Nights at the Flamingo Hotel
- Saltburn
July 2026; 331 pages
Published in 2002 by GMP
