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I have a ten year old child. But more importantly 10 days without a Solero. No one thought I could do this. But here we are. Only 18 days to go. Eighteen!!!? Nooooooo.
Being the host of RHLSTP Book Club is a privilege, but comes with some difficulties. Not least finding the time to read or listen to a book a week. It can be more than that, as I really only want to feature books that I have enjoyed and I can't guarantee that every book I read will lead to an interview. So I sometimes find myself ingesting three or more books at the same time. Which is easier if they are of different genres, but this week I've been reading three books which are all about romance or revenge or a mixture of the two.
So I just finished Kathy Lette's "The Revenge Club" and today I read the last few pages of "Don't Make Me Laugh" by Julia Raeside and I am listening to David Nicholls' "You Are Here". I don't generally read that much fiction, so it's strange to be doing three at once, but luckily they all come at their subjects from quite different angles so that if or when I speak to them I should hopefully not get things mixed up.
Lette's book is more fantastical and overtly comic than the others, involving cross dressing and villainously awful men getting their comeuppance. Not that villainous men is a fantastical idea (though these men have few redeeming features), but maybe them ever getting their just desserts is less likely to happen. Julia's also features despicable men though it feels a little more real world to me, but maybe only because it features stand-up comedians and I can recognise some of the types. Though I only see certain aspects of the narcissism and am surprised by the level of coercive control that is displayed in the story, which I am sure also happens in real life. This book also ends happily with an act of justified revenge, though again, not sure that happens so much in real life. What I really like about Julia's book is that the female protagonist is also deeply flawed and makes bad decisions and enjoys certain aspects of her flirtation with a man who turns out to a pretty serious wrong un.
I am fascinated by men and by comedians and our flaws and our mistakes and our saving graces. I have not lived a blameless life, of course, but I never fitted in with the cocaine fuelled alpha male comedy world of the 1990s and feel I belong to the slightly more balanced 21st Century comedy scene. This book is about people abusing power and aside from receiving the ire of those so full of themselves that they can't take even the lightest of criticism, I haven't witnessed much of that. There was a promoter who gave me the creeps and is well-known enough to be avoided by most women - I seem to remember once getting a lift from or with him in the back of a van full of carpets, which in hindsight feels a bit horror film and I find myself doubting my own memory, it seems so unlikley. There was one comedian who never made it very big (though I think he's still working) who seemed to sweat anger and menace and I wondered what he'd be capable of. And of course with comedians you don't know what is a joke and what is not - dark material doesn't mean a dark soul. But the skill of Julia's book is to realise that mostly these men hide their real self with charm and confidence.
I think it's unlikely that many men will read Kathy's book (though they should) but I hope more men and comedians especially will read Julia's. We need to do more work on ourselves, though I also hope more men will write honestly about what it is to be a man. Many of our problems come from the pressures we put on ourselves and my personal regrets come from times when I was lonely and insecure and sad and bullied and didn't think I could tell anyone about it.
David Nicholls (maybe because he's the only male writer) has no out and out complete arsehole men in his book and if you'd told me I'd be as gripped as I am by the story of a geography teacher and a copy editor hiking across the country, I'd have said it was unlikely. It's a lovely account of loneliness (see someone is talking about it) falling in love and the little lies that are told along the way and how they can have repercussions. Very much light relief after the other two books and gives you some hope that men (and women) can be just well-meaning idiots.
Will I remember which book is which and whose thought are whose when and if I come to talk about these three consecutive narratives banging around in my head? I think so, but they may all meld into one as the months and years pass by.
