Customer Reviews

Dead Long Enough

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I've never come across an author whose first two books struck such opposite tones in me. I loved Hawes first novel, A White Merc With Fins, and absolutely hated his second, Rancid Aluminum. This, his third, somewhat predictably hit me somewhere in the middle. It's a tale of mid-life crisis, recounted by the quiet member of a foursome of friends in their late 30s. Every year they meet in a pub to celebrate the birthday of Harry, the dynamic, pudgy and well-known TV archeologist for the masses. As is the custom, the quartet (Ben the narrator, Harry, Jan the svelte Arts Council bigwig, and The Wop, a muscle-bound ladies man) are led by Harry into an unknown one night adventure.

This year, they head to Ireland, where deep dark secrets from Harry's past are the catalysts for change and the aforementioned crisis. The characters are two-dimensional and fairly uninteresting, serving mostly as foils for Hawes' lengthy monologues to the reader-via Ben-about middle age, youth, and What's It All About. There's a certain energy and vim to it all, and at times it can get rather funny and clever, but ultimately the book has nothing much to say.

Currently the book is in development to become a film.

A friend recommended this book to me because he thought the author has a clever way of turning a phrase, making up for the lack of much in the way of a plot. He was right. It's quite easy to sum up the message of this story, which is that by the time we reach 40 or so most people are done looking forward and preoccupied with looking back, obsessed with youth which we barely appreciated when it was around because it is no longer in our possession. I was reminded a little of Nick Hornsby's prose, but perhaps mainly because the characters are British. Towards the end of Dead Long Enough the protagonist makes a vital life altering decision, spurred on by the death of an old friend. In essence he opts to try another way of living rather than continuing a slow but steady march towards dying. I'm not really giving anything away because the ending is revealed within the first few pages, and we read on to find out precisely how/why forecasted events take place. More how than why really, because we know why the characters feel and think and act as they do from the get go. They're no longer young but still wish they were. Their future is no longer limitless and crammed with potential, but there's still plenty of worthwhile living to do, so might as well make moves to make the best of it. The alternative of course is acceptance that it's all quickly downhill from here, and perhaps the downhill part is inevitable but we can at least do a little something about the rate of acceleration. James Hawes doesn't express a whole lot more than this in his novel, but the language he uses to do so makes the trip worth taking.