Customer Reviews

Who's Who in Hell: A Novel

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Sorry about the corny title, but I had to think of something.
I was given this book on my birthday and pretty much read it straight away. I was really intrigued by the title and the premise. I must say it took me a while to get into it, but after a while I could not stop reading Who's Who, until I finished it in one go.
I really wanted the actual compiling of Daniel's book to extend further into the novel, but that's not what it is really about. The relationship between Daniel and Laura is really the crux of the story. At times I was getting (annoyed) with it, but by the end I was hooked. Obviously I will not say what happens, needless to say I had no idea and could not stop telling people about it afterwards.
I have read a lot of books recently, very glutinous, but this one stood out becuase of the range of emotions that it produces. The final scene is amazing, I wish I could publish it here, but that would wreck the ending to a bloody brilliant novel.

I rarely finish books. It's not a trait I'm proud of. But I'm 19/20ths of the way through this novel and will be looking for more from Robert Chalmers. While the plot ambles a bit, almost to the point that you wonder if there is a real plot at all, I think it reflects the circuitous life path of its major character well. The author writes with wit and economy that I appreciate, and achieves occasional breathtaking moments of beauty or brutality that enter into all our lives, no matter how unextraordinary they may seem to strangers. I really enjoyed this book, and I look forward to reading more as Chalmers grows as a storyteller.

Robert Chalmers puts a unique spin on the boy meets girl love story. The plot is less disconnected than it initially appears because the reader doesn't understand the unifying theme until relatively late in the book. The title also proves to be a bit of a red herring. This could lead you, like some of the negative reviewers, to become frustrated with the story.

But to leave it at that is a disservice to a fine piece of writing. Chalmers' clear strength is relating the emotional highs and lows of the main character, Daniel. There are several points during the story in which you feel intimately connected to Daniel.

The story spans several years the life of Daniel Linnel, a heavy drinking late-20's Brit. As his career shifts from amateur therapist to obituarist, he meets Laura, with whom he instantly falls in love. The rest of the story follows the couple's ups and downs and the resulting emotional rollercoaster ride Daniel takes.

Chalmers also succeeds in building strong characters outside of Daniel and Laura. One feels a particular bond with Whittington, Daniel's salty boss and Paul, Laura's estranged brother. On the other hand, one feels particular disdain for Kate, Laura's best friend and Mr. Jardine, Laura's father.

The attempts at comedy are largely successful, with a few duds thrown in. But sometimes we get the sense that he's trying a little too hard to concoct a funny antecdote.

The ending takes a rather dramatic and unpredictable turn, but it plays towards Chalmers' strengths successfully. A good measure of a successful novel is the strength of emotional response it elicits. This book will make you emotional.

One promising premise after another with no resolution. That would be one definition of literary hell. It is the hell of reading this book. The protagonist's career as an untrained psychotherapist, his accidental amble into journalism, his promising beginning of a book, his visit to and falling in love with Kansas . . . One thread after another leads nowhere and adds up to little. This might have made a better collection of short stories. It certainly is not a novel.

I agree with the person who says that this should have been a short story collection. There are some great moments, interesting characters, amusing vignettes, but they just fade out and lead to nothing. Stick to Nick Hornby!

I was surprised at how much I enjoyed this novel. The central love story between Daniel Linnell and Laura begins with notes of foreboding and constantly passes each difficult test of their relationship in new and imaginative ways. Throughout, Chalmers creates interesting motifs: a bar, a newsroom, rituals of obituarists, that are fresh and well-imagined. When the book takes a long detour to Kansas, he does a fine job of changing the texture of the book from stuffy London to an insular but spread-out small town. Laura's family is well-drawn, and tragedy seems to lurk beneath them all that might make the subject of an entire other novel.

My least favorite part of the book was Chalmers insistence on switching between first and last names to describe characters, other than Laura and her co-workers, and in particular the times early in the book when I actually had to stop and remember that "Daniel" and "Linnell" were the same character. Other authors pull this off without you noticing, but it rankled here.

My favorite part, and why it deserves five stars, is the way in which Chalmers would plant seeds early in the novel and then use them to great effect later on, without smacking you in the face with them. Situations, jokes, motifs and games people play are described, not particularly emphasized, and then come back to haunt the characters in interesting and either remarkably funny or poignant ways. To describe them would be to ruin the novel, but the three most significant uses come right after they return from America, before a business trip by Daniel and at the very end.

As others have noted, the reason for the title itself also disappears quite early in the book, but if you think about it long enough, it comes back at the end, too. A wonderful read that repays the effort to follow what Chalmers is trying to do.

The protagonist is a twenty-something guy from Manchester, slightly depressed and cynical, with an unhappy childhood, living in London. We follow five years of his life, during which he gets married and has a child. That's the unifying story but there are several distimct plots going on.
The first concerns his career as a psychotherapist and a newspaper writer. This is a satirical story with echoes (perhaps deliberate) of Waugh's "Scoop." One problem here for me was that I'd recently been reading Scoop. Although Chalmers's jokes are often quite good, Evelyn Waugh's seventy-year old jokes are funnier.
The second concerns his love affair with the adventurous, much more self-assured, promiscuous American girl, Laura. This is poignant and tragic.
Laura's relationships with her Babbitt-like parents and her lonely, misunderstood, unsuccessful brother is a third plot.
Interspersed with these are multiple anecdotes and farcical incidents concerning a large number of other characters. Flashbacks and changes of narrative point of view add to the confusion and prevent this from being a page-turner.
It contains lots of excellent writing and sharp observation but the cook has failed to blend the ingredients.

This book was absolutely gripping. Although slow to start the rest more than made up for it. This is one deep piece of work. This is a book that you will want to savor--and take time to absorb. I advise that it be read slow; I think it sinks in better not to be read in one sitting. The characters really touched me, their realities--and the details within were absolutely startling at times...I give Mr. Robert Chalmers an A+.