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Jump to navigationJump to searchUnfaithfully Yours by Nigel Williams (view source)
Revision as of 12:25, 3 September 2020
, 12:25, 3 September 2020no edit summary
Well, obviously not, in this instance, for it is the darkness that prevails in this book in the end. The death of the eighth member of the group is greeted as trivial by many of our narrators, but it’s not the only serious, edgy note this novel manages to contain. We are, after all, joking about infidelity, missed opportunities perhaps, horrendous middle-class characters definitely. I can see the balance between light and shade being the crux upon which your opinion of this book hangs – certainly, for me, the serious, blacker sections were too black to contain comedy, and were just too sincerely nasty to be seen as humorous.
Apart from those, however, we have what is really a clever breeze. While the letter-writers might have been differentiated a bit more – in voice, style, font, whatever – the book skims past as the characters write so eloquently in real-time, first-person, English-as-how-she-is-said-not-writ manner. The plotting is as smart as many of the jokes, so I perhaps highlight the fact I found less comedy at times too largely. It does make me think this is second class as opposed to a full first -class, but this is still well worth receiving.
I must thank the publishers for my review copy.
You might enjoy [[How You See Me by S E Craythorne]]. For more social satire writ in letters, we enjoyed [[Burley Cross Postbox Theft by Nicola Barker]]. You might also appreciate [[In Fidelity by Jack Wilson]].
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