Customer Reviews

Glover's Mistake

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This book was really difficult to finish. Not because it was offensive, or shocking, or I thought that the author didn't have any abilities. It's that the book was so boring in its retreading of so many other stories before it. It reminded me of the show Friends with some cocaine and sex scenes thrown in. Laird tries to shake up what is otherwise an tired old love-triangle tale by attempting to be cutting edge with some vulgarities, but it just ends up being a cliched mess. Every character in the book reeks of pretentious platitudes, and they all send off an air of privileged "me me me" attitudes. This could be fine if Laird would have balanced this with some irony or some distractions that showed these characters for the inept whiners they are, but he never does. They just perpetually spin into a self-serving vortex that makes you want to scream (or close the book forever!)
While I was reading this story it made me think of many other, and better, books about relationships I've read in the past, and by the end of Glover's Mistake I could only think that I was the one who made the mistake of reading this book!

While this book is set, ever so superficially, in the London art scene, it has virtually nothing to do with either London or any art scene. Yes, there are a couple of openings, and yes, there are a few lines of coke, but it's all irrelevant to the story - these people could have been working at a laundry in Des Moines for all it mattered.

It starts out slowly, as the protagonist (David) seems dreary from the first, and nothing changes that. While his internal dialog is occasionally witty, it's at strange odds with his conversation, which is puerile, and often embarassing to the reader.

We're supposed to see this as a love triangle, in which David's unreturned infatuation with the artist Ruth is derailed when she becomes involved with David's flatmate Glover. David broods, whines, and eventually manipulates a destruction of Ruth and Glover's relationship. This might seem sad, except that one doesn't really care what happens to the relationship: Ruth is unsympathetic, and Glover always seems in way over his head.

Glover's mistake, which ends his relationship with Ruth, seems inconsistent with his character and ends the novel on a false note that reflects a lack of imagination on the writer's part.

Miss this.

Glover's Mistake is about the love triangle between lonely, single David, his young roommate Glover, and Ruth, an eccentric, middle-aged artist.

A Few Positives
- Ruth's daughter Bridget is probably the most dynamic, interesting character in the novel. Sassy, rebellious and intelligent she enjoys pointing out her mother's hypocrisies.
- David's bitter sarcasm can be entertaining.

The Negatives
- Controversy becomes cliche; blogging, snorting coke, older women dating younger men, religion, and modern art. Laird is trying too hard to connect with this generation. He instead should have picked one or two and really developed the issues.
- The scheming that occurs in the second half of the novel is contrived and an obviously desperate attempt to add excitement to the plot.
- The three main characters aren't interesting or well-developed.
- Laird is trying to monopolize on the whole "cougar" trend currently occurring. This would be fine if he was being innovative about it- he is not. The relationship follows the exact trend you would expect.

Unfortunately, I was very disappointed with this novel and would not recommend it.

I enjoyed reading Glover's Mistake. The pudgy main character, a 34-year-old teacher, David, seemed authentic although very whiny and obnoxiously needy. He's a slacker-liberal-arts type who drinks, does drugs socially, and slogs through his life just missing the mark. His self-conscious assessment of his situation is hilarious. David introduces his roommate, a hot 23-year-old bartender, Glover, to the woman David has recently become reacquainted and reinfatuated with - the 47-year-old American artist, Ruth. Ruth's attraction to Glover instead of David messes up David's quiet life.
The plot is pretty much a male version of chick lit. There is the meeting, the hook-up, etc. The author made Ruth's 47 years seem more like 60, thuogh. Her observations and reflections were those of a much older woman. (i.e. In the movie version, I could picture Helen Mirren playing Ruth instead of a more age-appropriate Heather Locklear.)
I thought the blurb billing the story as insight into the moneyed London Art Scene very misleading. If this is the London Art Scene, it's kind of boring. A better peek at the art scene (although N.Y.) was Lulu Meets God and Doubts Him. London did not feel necessary as the setting here. This novel could just as easily haven taken place in New England.
The quirks and portrayal of the minor characters - Glover and David's parents, Larry-Ruth's agent, Jess the lesbian - were so great. They were so colorful and real. There were so many little details and descriptions in the book that were worth repeating; I found myself folding down the corner of many pages as I went along. Definitely a book worth reading!

I loved Laird's first novel, Utterly Monkey, so picking up Glover's Mistake was a no-brainer. The book wasn't, however, as pleasant a read as his first. It was tedious in parts, plodding in others. Despite it's brevity, there were a couple places in which I really didn't want to continue. Though something remarkable happened. At the end, I found myself somehow emotionally invested in the story and the characters. When I turned the last page, I was very happy that I'd read it.

"Romantic used to refer to an expression of deep feeling . . . and now it's become nothing less than an insult, meaning one is unrealistic and possesses an idealized notion of the way things should be."

In college David Pinner developed a crush on his teacher Ruth Marks. Years later she has returned to London for an exhibition of her artwork and David goes to meet her. Knowing no one else in the area David and Ruth quickly become friends, and, naturally, Ruth meets David's much younger roommate James Glover. Unfortunately for David, Ruth falls for Glover. And pretty quickly, what should be a casual fling between a woman pushing 50 and a man barely old enough to drink starts to become more serious.

The characters in the story are very well fleshed out. David Pinner is a self-sabotaging perfectionist. His expectations are unrealistic so he's always disappointed and frustrated. Ruth Marks is a directionless artist. She tends to live in the moment and has a laisez faire attitude toward relationships. And James Glover is a naïve idealist. He has trouble wrapping his conservative ideals around Ruth's bisexual history and three previous marriages.

The language author Nick Laird uses is dynamic, at times direct, but also filled with blunt, vivid metaphor.

The trouble with having a protagonist who doesn't like himself is it's hard for the reader to empathize with him. David Pinner aggressively sets himself up for disappointment, then, when the worst happens, he goes online and blogs about it, which, of course, comes back to bite him.

Also the trouble with stories leading to an "inevitable conclusion" is that there are no real surprises.

However the strong point of the story is its uncomfortably accurate character studies. These are people you know. One of them may be the person you are. This isn't a book you read for laughs, no matter what the Publishers Weekly review above says. This is a book you read to appreciate the art form.

Glover's Mistake is a novel about social relationships in contemporary London. It is a small story that suggests the broader theme of fragmented and distorted communication facilitated in part by internet social networking. The characters (especially David) seem to do things in order to talk/write about them hoping that someone, anyone, will respond. The interaction is driven by the need to construct a meaningful personal whole out of an apparent chaos of information and opinion. The characters have disparate backgrounds, represent different generations, and lack meaningful starting points for their social creations, the stories they tell to each other. Laird shows that the foundation of the stories is a developing self-consciousness. Glover is in the dawning idealistic stage, David is in the critical artistic phase, and Ruth is in the reorganization life review period.

Laird's very good satiric description of social life in London is reminiscent of Patrick Hamilton's novels, especially Hangover Square (1941). People have a desperate need to get together and talk to each other, drinking alcohol to ease the way. Both authors focus on self-consciousness as an unreliable record of personal psychological development. Reworked and hidden memories create emotions that poke holes in each character's public story. An interesting contrast is that for Hamilton, the telephone plays a key role in faulty story telling while for Laird the internet is an important deceiver. Fans of Hamilton's work will enjoy Glover's Mistake recognizing the despair of the failure to connect.

Thinking about the relationships of the multidimensional characters in Glover's Mistake, readers gain insight into their own artistic creations that they present to others rather inconsistently. A surprising thought is that people usually know more about you than you think. Internet programs like Facebook and Twitter foster quick and easy solutions to problems of identity that are unsatisfying all around. A hopeful note is that our personal works of art can improve with maturity.

Glover's Mistake is about a love triangle involving three uninteresting, unlikeable people.

As there was no plot, the book relied solely on these people:
There's David, 35, obsessive, "woe is me", negative and bitter. James, 23, gorgeous, innocent, stupid, and "wait I have to say my prayers." And the woman they both have a thing for ... Ruth, 47, the self-absorbed American artist.

This book was really boring, and frankly kind of pretentious. I'm sorry to say that I couldn't find a single aspect to redeem it.

Glover's Mistake, ultimately, my mistake.

With the sheer number of stories that have been built upon the love triangle premise, it's a testament to Nick Laird's talent that Glover's Mistake manages to avoid any sense of staleness and pack such a strong thematic and emotional punch. Much of its success stems from the use of well-drawn characters. Ruth Marks is more than your average cougar; this forty-seven-year old modern artist (and sometimes lesbian) combines a world-weariness with a latent romanticism in a package that's convincingly attractive to men of all ages. This cougar's prey is James Glover, a hunky bartender whose religious devotion and youthful weight problem allow us to believe his virginity has entered the relationship intact. And caught in the middle is Glover's flatmate David Pinner, a thirty-five-year-old English teacher whose romantic intentions toward Ruth are hampered by his balding, overweight appearance.

As David comes to realize that Ruth has eyes only for young Glover, he turns toward all manner of devious tricks to drive the two apart. Witnessing David's metamorphosis from a hapless Charlie Brown into a full-blown Iago, and the rationalizations he employs to convince himself that his actions are somehow less evil than they appear, really get under your skin and allow the author to tease out some powerful themes about the demise of love, religion, and morality in the modern world.

In a sense, Glover's Mistake is the complete inverse of the ever-present romantic comedy. But that's not a bad thing at all, as this romantic tragedy will linger with you long after you put it back on the shelf.

I didn't really expect to like this book very much, and the first chapter was a little difficult for me to get through. However, once I started the second chapter, I was completely swept up into these lives, and wanted to see where this would go.

The story revolves around the lives of 3 people:

David Pinner - a teacher in him mid-30s, who uses his internet blog to attempt to connect emotionally to the world around him.

James Glover - a young, gorgeous bartender, who is dealing with his own set of insecurities and human frailties.

Ruth Marks - a good-looking artist in her mid-40s who, despite the demons in her own life, still holds out hope that happiness is just around the next corner.

When David re-connects with Ruth after 10+ years, he finds himself attracted to her and feels a relationship could work. Through David, Ruth meets James, who is David flatmate, and Ruth and James begin a romantic relationship. David makes up the third side of this triangle.

What is played out so well in this novel are the play of emotions from the characters. None of these people are heroes, none are comendable. All these characters have selfish motives. Yet, they all care for one another. There were times in this book when I thought, "Well, I'd never do that!" Only to back track and correct myself by thinking, "Yeah, if I was honest, I probably would." In many ways this story is painful to read, as it exposes how hurtful and emotional we can be when involved with others. On the flip side, it also shows how loyal and strong bonds can be when we know we are needed.

This book had a dark, somber tone to it, and admittedly, when I finished it I felt drained emotionally. I felt the author had taken me for quite a ride, but I enjoy that from a book.