New Zealand Listener – March 02, 2018

54 LISTENER MARCH 10 2018

BOOKS&CULTURE

by DAVID HILL

I

like this first novel. I like it partly

because it’s so inerrant in its presenta-

tion of male love: that derisive hoot

and thump on the arm that all XY

chromosome holders know means “die for

you, bro – but don’t tell anybody”.

Two boyos from 1990s Dublin want to

save their mate. Physically,

Tom is okay, if you discount

the eyepatch. He’s back home

after a spell away, an evil

spell as war correspondent in

besieged Sarajevo. Internally,

the guy’s a wreck, “obsessed

with the notion of bearing

witness”.

Baz and Karl are set on

helping him through. They

try it in the most devoted and

chaotic of ways, via a road trip through

California to the experimental clinic

called Restless Souls, run by a Vietnam

vet who sounds like the King of Quacks.

Trouble is, while they’re settling Tom’s

memories, their own start bubbling. They

bubble mostly from the fact that these

three mates used to be four.

That’s the guts of Dan Sheehan’s very

satisfying story. It could be such a cliché,

but it stays real and raw. Plot and lads

career along. Jokes spray

like shrapnel. Good taste is

subverted at least once a page.

Terrific.

They experience naked yoga

and campfires, the World’s

Largest Donut and white-

knuckle driving above the

Pacific. They discourse on the

etiquette of urination in public

cemeteries. There’s anguish

as well as comedy. Their pica-

resque progress is punctuated by Tom’s

memories of Sarajevo: women crying into

their hands, pages floating from a burning

library, hotel windows bullet-proofed with

mattresses, and doctor and lover Helena.

The clinic turns out to be a place of

zebras, robots and jewelled cow skulls.

After they reach it, Tom really falls apart.

by CATHERINE WOULFE

J

ill Mansell writes books that are

meant to make women feel good.

Romantic fiction. Stories about love

and life, stories that lift us up and

lighten our days.

I set aside her latest, saving it to read

during a week I knew might be quite shite.

For a while, it worked. We meet stylish

older lady Zillah, smart, spry and kind.

We meet Conor, a photographer sensi-

tive enough to be entranced by a woman

who picks out a few ballet steps beside a

busker on a snowy street. We meet the

zany bestie. Then we meet our heroine,

Essie. And in her first scene she comes out

with this: “Arabella’s a slutty minx whose

favourite hobby is sleeping with other

women’s husbands.”

It’s cruelty. Petty, unprompted and

deeply sexist. Whoosh, there went any

interest I had in Essie finding her happily

ever after. And whoosh, with it the faith

I had in Mansell. There’s little light left

Unhappily

ever after

What’s left in a

romance novel when

you’re not invested in

the leading lady?

Breaking

the spell

Anguish and comedy

abound in a story

of three Irish mates

in search of salvation.

Dan Sheehan: plot and lads career along, jokes

spray like shrapnel and good taste is subverted.

Jill Mansell: painfully

out of touch.