Groovy Granny goes wild in the Bush
NO THANKS, I’M QUITE HAPPY STANDING
SHEPHERD’S Bush’s grooviest granny makes a more-than-welcome return. Marie’s challenges this time include her friend Penny’s binge-drinking, her over-fond ex-husband and an uncomfortable holiday in India with rich American friends.
The book teems, as always, with its heroine’s no-nonsense observations on everything from smartphones to fashionable grasses.
Ironside’s humour is reminiscent of the great Sue Townsend’s (and I can pay no greater compliment) — a combination of unpretentiousness, generosity and piercing insight.
Like Adrian Mole, Marie has a tender heart and is devoted to her family, friends, cat and West London neighbourhood.
She does not always stay there even so; her adventures amid the poverty of the subcontinent are as moving as they are funny, and make some brave points.
I adore Marie Sharp and can’t wait for the next book.
OUTSTANDING by Kathryn Flett (Quercus £16.99)
EVE is the sleek, ambitious head of a posh Sussex prep school to which the seriously rich send their children. Richest of all are the Sorensens, a golden couple whose advent changes Eve’s life.
Her beautiful daughter gets work experience in Stefan Sorensen’s New York office and she flies out on his private jet.
But it turns out that a payback is expected and in a world where only money matters, Eve finds herself compromised on many fronts.
Private education is a brilliant subject and Flett’s all-seeing eye misses nothing.
From ‘Down-From-London’ yummy mummies to what the super-wealthy wear at cocktail parties, no style or social detail escapes her. What works less well is a plot whose moral compass seems to wobble a bit and the lack of a truly sympathetic character. I really enjoyed it, even so.
SHTUM by Jem Lester (Orion £12.99)
NOVELS about autism form their own literary genre these days, but this one stands out from the crowd. Ben is a functioning alcoholic whose wife walks out on him. To help him cope with their severely autistic ten-year-old, Ben must mend bridges with his own dad, an austere Jew with terminal cancer. Put like that, it all sounds almost comically ghastly, and in the wrong hands it would be.
But Jem Lester’s are the right hands and they carry off this challenging storyline with spectacular success.
There are some very sad moments, but far more that are blackly funny. Lester is superb at comic cameo, and the local authority jobsworths with whom Ben must deal are hilariously drawn.
But it is Georg, Ben’s severe and loving father, who is the novel’s towering achievement; a complex man whose tragic past ultimately illuminates the present.