From Publishers Weekly
Raunchy, irreverent and intermittently amusing, this rambling black comedy tells the unlikely story of a 30-something London slacker with a clandestine second life. Shea Hickson may confess his postadolescent discontent with all the self-aware self-indulgence of a Nick Hornby character, but he justifies his hazy existence by his secret participation as "Little John" in an anti-celebrity underground conspiracy out of a Ben Elton satire. When his father, a popular BBC-TV weatherman, commits suicide, Shea has something in his life to take seriously other than culture jamming for the mysterious "Robin Hood," his contact in the guerrilla organization. His father's diary reveals a secret life of his own, and Shea decides to track down the people in it, who are code-named the Sun, the Wind, the Clouds and El Ni¤o. Hughes, a popular British stand-up comedian, produces torrents of one-liners and even scattered satiric invective, but no cohesive plot. As Shea explores his father's past, from radical lefty university days to compromised media career, he realizes that the old man's sins are going to be visited on his sons. Shea, his brother, and even a mysterious half-brother in Australia are in imminent danger. For all the Martin Amis-style black humor and bad sex, the final, telegraphed twist to Hughes's talky satire about the chattering classes can't unite its disparate voices. (Mar.)Forecast: Hughes is a bestselling author in England, but his celebrity status in the U.K. won't help the book much here, and the novel's flaws probably will keep its sales from being what Hughes would have wanted.
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From Booklist
Shea Hickson's father, a TV weatherman, commits suicide, and when Shea discovers the body along with a series of diaries, his life, for the first time, has direction. He must decipher his father's meteorologically encrypted diaries and unfold the complicated and painful story leading up to his suicide. But this is no ordinary grief observed. Shea confronts every crisis in his life with an unhealthy dose of glib sarcasm, and his discoveries about his father are often as funny as they are tragic (he sleeps with his father's mistress, for instance). Young Hickson also must confront impending fatherhood, following a one-night stand with his hairdresser, and perform one final task for the shady leftist organization for which he has worked for several years. The frenetic pace of the novel continues to speed up until a brilliantly wrought, heart-rending conclusion gives the novel emotional power it might otherwise lack. Some readers may tire of Shea's talky, introspective narration, but following Shea around feels like driving through the streets of nighttime London at 140 kilometers per hour--terrifying and horrible, but really fun. John Green
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
