From Publishers Weekly
If, as its publisher claims, this was chosen by a London newspaper as one of the best British novels of 1986, then British fiction is not in very good shape. It's not a terrible book; simply a tired and rather crude comedy of a group of upwardly mobile Londoners that never lives up to its zingy first line: "Venables saw the woman he wanted to marry on the day after his wedding." The woman turns out to be a former nude model, in turn married to a rich ad man whose agency collapses; Venables's own wife runs a sandwich bar; then there's a surly young writer doing a book called Battered Husbands, which as quoted seems to consist of sophomorically misogynist observations cemented together with stray newspaper clippings. Several of these people meet on holiday in Spain and become, rather improbably, best friends; the rest of the book is taken up with their various economic ups and downs. There's a lot of financial expertise, much of it devoted to tax-dodging, some dirty talk but little actual sex and a decidedly sappy happily-ever-after windup. The message that comes across most clearly is that Britons don't much care for their homeland.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.
