Cultural Dessert

'Leading the Cheers' by Justin Cartwright

17 January 2008

Having enjoyed reading 'The Promise of Happiness' by Justin Cartwright (reviewed here a couple of weeks ago) I was looking forward to trying his earlier novel (and winner of the Whitbread Novel Award) 'Leading the Cheers'. It's quite a different book, however, and I'm afraid it didn't engage me as much as 'The Promise of Happiness'. In 'Leading the Cheers' a middle-aged returns from London to his high school reunion in Michigan where he discovers that his clear recollections of his childhood are not as accurate as he thought. The search for the truth about misremembered events is complicated by the unreliable memories of each of the protagonists - one of whom is now too busy remembering his previous life as a member of a Native American tribe. I liked the idea that "life is like one of those old masters which reveal something more interesting underneath when they are cleaned or x-rayed." Although the book is very well written, because it is in the first person and I didn't find the narrator sympathetic or even particularly likeable I found it hard to get into it. Set against the backdrop of the Clinton/Dole presidential election there are repeated references to the controversial euthanasia proponent Jack Kevorkian, serial killers and Ralph Waldo Emerson - but I couldn't really see the connections that I think were being suggested. Having said all that, once I got going it was an interesting read with some nice plot twists - but overall I felt like I was floating disinterestedly through the book - much like its narrator!

Labels: Books

posted by Robin Simpson @ 6:24 pm