{"id":4104,"date":"2013-04-17T10:34:26","date_gmt":"2013-04-17T10:34:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/?p=4104"},"modified":"2013-04-18T10:58:53","modified_gmt":"2013-04-18T10:58:53","slug":"meeting-the-english-by-kate-clanchy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/?p=4104","title":{"rendered":"Meeting the English by Kate Clanchy"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Published by Picador 9 May 2013<\/strong><\/p>\n

320pp, hardback, \u00a316.99<\/strong><\/p>\n

Reviewed by Caroline Sanderson<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The term \u2018Hampstead Novel\u2019 used to generate something of a literary hoohah. Searching for a definition online, I found it described as \u2018a slow, self-consciously intellectual, dinner party novel\u2019, and \u2018a middle-class morality novel – probably involving adultery and shallow-masquerading-as-deep\u2019. And somewhat topically\u2013 in the words of Margaret Drabble, a supposed proponent of the form\u2013 \u2018an invention of the “Thatcherite press\u201d \u2019. Ouch.<\/p>\n

In the less sensational words of that thoughtful London writer Amanda Craig, however, the Hampstead Novel is actually \u2018about people who live pretty much as we do, to whom things happen\u2019. That description could certainly apply to Kate Clanchy\u2019s entertaining debut novel, Meeting the English<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Set entirely in London NW3 during the long, hot and globally eventful summer of 1989, Meeting the English<\/em> centres on the family of Phillip Prys, a playwright and novelist of some renown who has recently had a stroke which has rendered him paralyzed and unable to communicate. Attempting to cope with this cataclysmic domestic event are Shirin, his shining, much younger Iranian artist wife, his formidable ex-wife Myfanwy, and his two troubled children \u2013 Jake who has been sent down from Oxford for unacceptable conduct and possession of illegal drugs, and Juliet who is more preoccupied with her weight than her impending GCSEs. Then an unlikely saviour arrives in the shape of Struan Robertson, an academically brilliant seventeen-year-old orphan from a dour Scottish mining town.\u00a0 Seeking gainful gap year employment he answers an advertisement in The London Review of Books<\/em>: \u2018Literary Giant seeks young man to push bathchair.\u2019<\/p>\n

And the rest is Clanchy\u2019s novel, which examines what happens when Struan \u2013 who has never in his life \u2018been south\u2019 \u2013 meets the English. And not just any English, but the eccentric Prys m\u00e9nage<\/em> of NW3 which appears as exotic and incomprehensible to him as a chattering class of tropical birds. And yet, miraculously, the ing\u00e9nue but caring orphan boy from Cuik turns out to be rather good at sorting out everyone, as well as pushing bathchairs.<\/p>\n

Clanchy extracts much wry comedy from the situation. She is particularly good on appearance and the clothes of the period, from Struan\u2019s C&A shirt and unfashionable pleated trousers which give him a \u2018strange sexless fold around the crotch\u2019, to Juliet\u2019s knitted pink dress and pouffed 80s hair clipped up in combs. And Clanchy evokes the hot and heady ether of 1989 beautifully too, from the background buzz of events in South Africa, Iran and Eastern Europe, to the Lloyd Cole & the Commotions lyrics, and afternoons spent sucking ice cubes and watching Flamingo Road<\/em> reruns.<\/p>\n

I so enjoyed this novel. I know this has a lot to do with the strangely co-incidental fact that in 1989 I too was freshly arrived in London from the provinces; working in a shop in Hampstead and grappling with the outlandish whims of its rarefied, intellectual residents. But by dint of its \u2018stranger in a strange land comedy\u2019 and keen observation of family dynamics, Meeting the English<\/em> is more than a period piece. And it\u2019s more than a Hampstead Novel. Whatever that is.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reviewed by Caroline Sanderson<\/p>\n

Clanchy\u2019s novel, which examines what happens when Struan \u2013 who has never in his life \u2018been south\u2019 \u2013 meets the English. And not just any English, but the eccentric Prys m\u00e9nage of NW3 which appears as exotic and incomprehensible to him as a chattering class of tropical birds. And yet, miraculously, the ing\u00e9nue but caring orphan boy from Cuik turns out to be rather good at sorting out everyone, as well as pushing bathchairs […] in Reviews<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4104","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-new-fiction-and-non-fiction","category-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4104","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4104"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4104\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4140,"href":"https:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4104\/revisions\/4140"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4104"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4104"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4104"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}