I wasn't able to connect with this book. Perhaps it's written for a certain kind of people, perhaps for people at certain age... Anyway, it was not my cup of tea. I'll leave the door open for other readers who might find the way to enjoy it.

Mannered and Precious

In the opening pages the author managed to make the act of carrying a suitcase up a driveway angsty, aggravating, and annoying. It was all downhill after that. I mean, I like a gimmick as much as the next guy, but even Gypsy Rose Lee showed a little skin occasionally.

Everything about this book made me want to write a comment that was angry and mean. Then I got a grip. While every aspect of the book, (style, content, pacing, characters, attitude, structure, gimmicky repetitive tics), was unappealing to me, the book obviously speaks to some audience, whosoever they might be. Who knows, maybe you will end up being a member of that select company.

(Please note that I received a free ecopy of this book without a review requirement, or any influence regarding review content should I choose to post a review. Apart from that I have no connection at all to either the author or the publisher of this book.)

This book was the winner of the 2020 2020 Guardian Not the Booker prize for which I was a judge. .

Although not my favourite book on the list I always admire ambition in an author, and Parthian press seem an excellent publisher. And (as a I comment below) although I don't think this book was quite for me it has struck a real chord with many other readers of literary fiction.

The author has previously written a short story collection, and appears to be as famous in Serbia as he is his native Wales, as set out in an extremely detailed and almost hyperbolic (and amusing) Wikipedia page.

The book is set on the island of Ynys Môn (the island formerly known as Anglesey) and features Hill – something of an concept-film maker (the rights to one of his films having been bought by Jack Black. He (and his cat) returns to the Island to visit his dying father (from whom he seems to be estranged ever since blaming his father for his mother’s suicide) – living in his mother’s old house which she actually bequeathed to Hill (with his father Roger having the right to stay there). Hill has recently-ish lost his wife to an accident and has fallen out with her relatives.

Roger has taken on a carer (who he met in the Co-op) Trudy and she with her dog seem to have taken up residency – and despite Hill’s unease over this, he and Trudy start a relationship.

"Do you want to stay over, Trudy asks
I, Hill says
Might be a disaster, Hill thinks "

On one level Trudy gives Hill a sense of perspective – but she does it by statements such as announcing that not doing things that give you pleasure is actually categorised as self-harm. The two seem to function better typing and then deleting searches on their phones or flicking through a Netflix menu than actually talking.

There really is not that much more to the plot of the book – what makes it unusual is its rather staccato and often repetitive narrative style and its frequent references to social media devices, to films, to social media ideas (characters ask of mundane conversations if they are being cancelled or trolled) and to a balanced obsession with health and junk food (with little in between). Short chapters are interleaved with unanswered emails to Jack Black, texts from Hill’s friend Ed, emails from Roger to Hill (which seems their only communication method) and some watersport/activity interludes.

All of this makes the book a very place specific and very modern (dare I say millennial) exploration of the universal and timeless theme of grief.

And to be honest I could not really connect with either the strong sense of time or strong sense of place in the novel.

When reading the profile above (and the references to it and other items in the Wikipedia profile) I sometimes felt I was missing out on a series of in-jokes and similarly when reading this book I felt I was missing out and was not really the intended audience. It probably shows that I am not the target for this book that I had to check that Jack Black was a real life actor and had no idea who Jason Stalham (the subject of a chapter) was.

However the book was extremely enthusiastically reviewed by Sam Jordison for the Guardian as part of Not The Booker and swept the public vote at both shortlist and winner stage due to a very enthused set of readers - so this is clearly a book which inspires a number of people and I would urge people to check it out.