“But see, how did she make the food hot? And how do you know what should be hot and what shouldn’t? ‘cos sometimes we had ham. Cold. And sometimes we had bacon. Hot. And when you buy it they don’t tell you which one is which. I thought they would. I’ve been buying it, but I don’t know what to do with it. What about lettuce and cabbage? What about hot chicken and cold chicken? And I’m sure we had cold potatoes once but they’re not like the cold potatoes that you buy in the shop. They were horrible the ones I bought. I think I bought hot ones by mistake but they were cold hot ones. I get muddled”
This is a beautiful book. It tracks what starts out appearing to be a normal marriage breakdown, but which turns somewhat peculiar when the husband sees a spiritual healer. The entire narative is from the point of view of the wife, a GP and mother of two – the above passage is a quote from one of her patients.
We get to hear about the collapse of her self-image as ‘a good person’ as her husband morphs from the Angriest Man in Holloway into one of the most mellow hippies you could imagine.
There is a lot of passion in the book, a roller coaster swinging you between emotional breakdown one moment and hilarity the next, then back again without batting an eyelid. It an easy read, too, his words are nicely paced for my mind, and the characters involved, while slightly eccentric are all well developed – of course, being her narative she seems like the sane one. For the most part it isn’t structured as a diary, though, they’re very much her thoughts as they happen rather than necessarily reflection on past event.
In many ways, though, I found this book scary. It dredged up a whole bunch of emotions within me that I never want to experience again, and even reading about someone else going through them was a little close to home. And then there was my own reevaluation of what being a good person means
A valuable book – read it.
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