Three thirty-ish Londoners are facing up to early middle age, and finding it more daunting than they expected in Jamie Holland's An Almost Perfect Moon. Flin is a hip film publicist who has nonetheless had enough of his egocentric world, not to mention the broken-down escalators on the Tube. Ben has won the glittering prizes--wife, home, wholesome new baby--but still finds a certain emptiness within. Meanwhile Harry is worried about his ongoing bachelor status, and yet rejects the notion of not being in control of his own fridge. So far, so so, you might say--just another London-based lad novel, right? And, yes, it's true to say that second-novelist Jamie Holland's prose and subject matter aren't the newest kids on the literary block. His style is plain, competent, deadpan and workmanlike: "'Now, where were we?' She smiled once more, pulling down his trousers and boxer shorts." But dig a little deeper and Holland's characters become less clichéd. The supposedly studly Harry thinks a woman who says the F word in bed is into "kinky sex". Media gunslinger and trendy Flin turns out to have a liking for sheep--his move to Northumberland provides much of the narrative meat of the book. And Ben might bemoan his sleepless new fatherhood but he still rushes home to bathe the baby. It's not giving too much away to say the book ends fairly happily; the book is so upfront about its upbeat message. En route to its likeable if predictable denouement An Almost Perfect Moon is agreeable, proficient, amusing and occasionally insightful; an almost perfect holiday read, in fact. Sean Thomas
Three thirty-ish Londoners are facing up to early middle age, and finding it more daunting than they expected in Jamie Holland's An Almost Perfect Moon. Flin is a hip film publicist who has nonetheless had enough of his egocentric world, not to mention the broken-down escalators on the Tube. Ben has won the glittering prizes--wife, home, wholesome new baby--but still finds a certain emptiness within. Meanwhile Harry is worried about his ongoing bachelor status, and yet rejects the notion of not being in control of his own fridge. So far, so so, you might say--just another London-based lad novel, right? And, yes, it's true to say that second-novelist Jamie Holland's prose and subject matter aren't the newest kids on the literary block. His style is plain, competent, deadpan and workmanlike: "'Now, where were we?' She smiled once more, pulling down his trousers and boxer shorts." But dig a little deeper and Holland's characters become less clichéd. The supposedly studly Harry thinks a woman who says the F word in bed is into "kinky sex". Media gunslinger and trendy Flin turns out to have a liking for sheep--his move to Northumberland provides much of the narrative meat of the book. And Ben might bemoan his sleepless new fatherhood but he still rushes home to bathe the baby. It's not giving too much away to say the book ends fairly happily; the book is so upfront about its upbeat message. En route to its likeable if predictable denouement An Almost Perfect Moon is agreeable, proficient, amusing and occasionally insightful; an almost perfect holiday read, in fact. Sean Thomas