review BOOKS
SEXUAL COMEDY
The Love Hexagon William Sutcliffe (Hamish Hamilton £9.99) ** *
William Sutcliffe’s follow up to Are You Experienced?. his satirical look at gap year travellers, attempts to examine the social limbo where friendship tempered by sexual attraction resides. The Love Hexagon revolves around a group of six twentysomething Londoners who lean on each other for emotional support (and the occasional shag when the opportunity presents itself).
At the centre of this tangle of divided loyalties and incestuousness are Lisa and Guy, a couple who slowly realise that familiarity does indeed breed contempt. and that they are coasting along in a long term
From the bestselling author of Are You Experienced?
the love hexagon
Shapes of wrath: The Love Hexagon
relationship that's gone horribly stale.
Although it trots along at a swift pace and Sutcliffe inserts a steady stream of amusing, well-crafted observations into the narrative about life. love and sleeping with your mates, this contemporary comedy of sexual manners treads a well-worn path and, as a result, is pretty predictable. As soon as a character is delineated you know exactly what their fate will be. This may be the fault of the overzealous omnipotent narrator who provides insight into all the protagonists' psyches. thereby taking all the fun out of guessing who they'll end up
in bed with.
In parts, the novel manages to capture the embarrassment that accompanies the modern day dating game and the pain which is part and parcel of the disintegration of a love affair. However, the sum of these parts amounts to a less gripping, prose version of This Life with arts graduates instead of lawyers. (Dawn Kofie)
January
BORDERS. Highlights
books-music-video-cafe
PULP FICTION Chocolate Lizards
Cole Thompson (No Exit £6.99) at it i:
Written in the narrow sub-drvrsron of pulp known as 'West Texas oil-field gothic’, Cole Thompson has created a tumbleweed-strewn landscape peOpled with characters familiar to anyone who’s watched more than one episode of Dallas.
Aspiring actor Erwin Vandeveer strikes out in Hollywood and on his way home to Boston, gets stranded in the small town of Abilene. Along the conveyor-belt of caricatures comes Merle Luskey, the diehard oil-drillin’ cowboy, who befriends our city boy and enlists his services in the race- against-time battle to find some Texas tea (oil that is) and save his rigs.
Other characters include the fat, corrupt sheriff and the brassy Houston whore, Tex-Ann. Riding the Texan archetype like a wild bucking steer in a strong dialogue-based narrative, heavy on sound effects, Thompson shows himself to be a confident, if trashy, raconteur. Definitely one for all the line dancers out there. Yeehawl (CB)
MULTI-NARRATlVE CONFESSIONAL Come Again
Josie Lloyd & Emlyn Rees (Heinemann £10) at *
Yes, here they come again like extras from the set of yet another Jerry
Springer show, a troupe of twentysomething slackers and emotional refugees from the pens of Josie Lloyd and Emlyn Rees.
Come Again follows a similar narrative structure as its chapter- alternating best-selling predecessor,
' Come Together, except this time four
characters tell the story but confide in friends so any secrets are quickly circulated.
Our gossipmongers are closely involved in the wedding plans of their
mutual friends Jack and Amy. Diary- . like, the four narratives follow their
exploits on their respective stag and hen weekends and right up to the Big
; Day. Their doings might raise a few smiles and winces of recognition but
you can’t escape the rather jaded feeling that you’ve seen it all once too often.
Let’s hope the next decade finds us
i eschewing those novel-cum-memoirs
about Generation X angst creaking on
the shelf beside the self-help manuals. (DP)
REVIEWERS THIS ISSUE: Catherine Bromley, Rodger Evans, Ally
Hardy, Moira Jeffrey, Dawn Kofie,
Hannah McGill, Alan Morrison, Denyse
Presley, Mark Robertson
Richard Price
will be reading from his new poetry collection Perfume and Petrol Fumes.
David Shrigley will be signing copies of his cult book The Beast is Near:
Feng Shui Scotland
will be in-store discussing the art of balancing your home envi- ronment and enhancing your day to day living.
Tony Hawks
will be talking about the strange bet and forfeit that led to him writing Playing the Moldovans at Tennis an exceptionally funny and inspiring book following the success of Round Ireland with u Fridge.
7pm Thurs 20th Jan
1pm Sat 22nd Jan
7pm 'Ihes 25th Jan
7pm Wed 26th Jan
7pm Thurs 27th Jan
Tom McGowran & Stanley Gimson
will be discussing Beyond the Bamboo Screen which details the experiences of Scottish
Prisoners of war in the Far East during WWII.
8pm Sun 30th Jan
Robert Knox
introduces a unique mix of music, performance poetry, spoken word and stand-up comedy in Cabaret in the Cafe.
Plus our regular programme of children’s events (every Saturday at 1 lam), creative writing and poetry classes, discussion groups, Jazz music with Bobby Wishart (every Friday at 7.30pm) and much, much more . . .
STAR RATINGS a: t * t * Unmissable * t * * Very good wk 1: Worth a shot i * Below average * You've been warned
For more information
98 Buchanan Street, Glasgow G1 3BA
0141 222 7700
8am to 11pm Monday to Saturday, 10am to 10pm Sunday
7—20 Jan 2000 THE LIST 81