2000, ISBN: 9780140292701

Penguin Books Ltd, 2000. Paperback. A long-running soap opera star is about to be axed. And there ends the simi larity with The Killing of Sister George. Nigel Williams' latest novel is … More...

Penguin Books Ltd, 2000. Paperback. A long-running soap opera star is about to be axed. And there ends the simi larity with The Killing of Sister George. Nigel Williams' latest novel is s et firmly in family land, where Paul Slippery, the forty-nine-and-a-half-ye ar-old radio voice of Dr Esmond Pennebaker, has a working wife, Estelle, an d three GCSE to degree level sons, named Ruarighy, Jakob and Edwin. Paul is undergoing some mid-life crisis, doesn't understand his wife's newfound in dependence, doesn't understand the shenanigans going on at the BBC, doesn't understand the intricate goings-on of his teenage sons, representatives of another species, and can't seem to remember when he last had sex. Although Williams throws in a lot more sex, and an Asian woman, much of Fortysometh ing belongs to a dated white middle-class sitcom world invented by Carla La ne, where the sexes and the generations are divided by mutual ignorance and incomprehension, and brought together only by a shared dependence on Waitr ose food. Williams piles on plot after plot, and there's a good deal of com ic misunderstanding, but the novel's humour derives mainly from its journal form, with Slippery seizing every available (and unavailable) moment to sc ribble his diary like some latterday Samuel Richardson heroine. Fast, furio us, and even funny--for fortysomethings., Penguin Books Ltd, 2000, 0<

2000, ISBN: 9780140292701

Penguin Books Ltd, 2000. A long-running soap opera star is about to be axed. And there ends the simi larity with The Killing of Sister George. Nigel Williams' latest novel is s et firmly… More...

Penguin Books Ltd, 2000. A long-running soap opera star is about to be axed. And there ends the simi larity with The Killing of Sister George. Nigel Williams' latest novel is s et firmly in family land, where Paul Slippery, the forty-nine-and-a-half-ye ar-old radio voice of Dr Esmond Pennebaker, has a working wife, Estelle, an d three GCSE to degree level sons, named Ruarighy, Jakob and Edwin. Paul is undergoing some mid-life crisis, doesn't understand his wife's newfound in dependence, doesn't understand the shenanigans going on at the BBC, doesn't understand the intricate goings-on of his teenage sons, representatives of another species, and can't seem to remember when he last had sex. Although Williams throws in a lot more sex, and an Asian woman, much of Fortysometh ing belongs to a dated white middle-class sitcom world invented by Carla La ne, where the sexes and the generations are divided by mutual ignorance and incomprehension, and brought together only by a shared dependence on Waitr ose food. Williams piles on plot after plot, and there's a good deal of com ic misunderstanding, but the novel's humour derives mainly from its journal form, with Slippery seizing every available (and unavailable) moment to sc ribble his diary like some latterday Samuel Richardson heroine. Fast, furio us, and even funny--for fortysomethings., Penguin Books Ltd, 2000, 0<

ISBN: 9780140292701

Paul Slippery is 49 and 5 months, and this is his diary in the lead-up to the great day. He lives with his long-suffering wife and three difficult teenage boys in Wimbledon, a figure of f… More...

Paul Slippery is 49 and 5 months, and this is his diary in the lead-up to the great day. He lives with his long-suffering wife and three difficult teenage boys in Wimbledon, a figure of fun and pity. To compound his problems, he hears that the soap-opera radio part he has played for 25 years is to be killed off. Oh yes, and he can't remember when he last had sex. A cross between Helen Fielding and Sue Townsend, FORTYSOMETHING holds a funny, painful mirror up for the male fortysomething.; Contemporary Fiction, Penguin Books Ltd<