Wild Abandon

November 7, 2011
In his semiamusing second novel, Dunthorne (Submarine) once again saddles children with problematic parents. Eleven-year-old Albert and 17-year-old Kate chafe under the attention of their father, Don, and mother, Freya, who have founded a self-sustaining commune called Blaen-y-Llyn in South Wales. Home-schooled Kate yearns to be normal and forces her parents to enroll her in the local school, while Albert, obsessed with end times, is actively planning for the apocalypse. Meanwhile, the shrinking community is falling apart; Freya is thinking about taking Albert and leaving Don; and Kate moves in with her boyfriend’s middle-class family. As a last ditch attempt to hold everything together, Don throws a rave and invites the local townsfolk. Dunthorne proves himself an equal opportunity satirist of both neo-hippie and petit bourgeois pretensions: after suffering a nervous breakdown, commune cofounder Patrick has a difficult time readjusting to the outside world, and Kate’s boyfriend’s father seems to have an agenda for Kate. Dunthorne revels in all the indignities his back-to-the-land characters have to endure, even returning to the early ’90s recession to dramatize the commune’s founding. Yet the satire is disappointingly uneven, and the uniformly unpleasant characterizations leave a sour aftertaste.

November 1, 2011
The consequences of being raised by hippie parents in a commune begin to loom large for two siblings. Deservedly lauded for his debut novel and its subsequent indie-film adaptation, Dunthorne (Submarine, 2008) loses some traction but gains some writing chops with his sophomore outing. The book is set at Blaen-y-Llyn, a commune in south Wales whose experiment in self-sufficiency is beginning to fray at the edges after 20 years of isolation. The locals (and some of the residents) call it The Rave House, following a particularly noisy birthday party for teenager Kate. After years of exposure to nudity, drugs, goats and self-indulgence, Kate has decided to rebel in the most divisive way she can think up: dating a meat-headed local boy named Geraint and indulging in the banal amenities of suburban life outside the commune. At the heart of her rebellion is the growing tension between her parents: Don, the community's bearded founder in love with his own skewed ideology, and Freya, a long-suffering spouse whose growing sense of discontent is throwing Blaen-y-Llyn into disarray. A number of other odd characters fill out the ensemble, from a dope-addled romantic smitten with another member of the community to a former ad man who appears to be quietly documenting the community's demise for his own selfish purposes. The book's beating heart is Kate's brother Albert, a 12-year-old whose burgeoning sexuality, scalding intellect and off-kilter sense of humor put him at odds with everyone around him. The best scenes are those that put Albert and his beloved sister at odds. "Where were Mum and Dad while you were being brainwashed?" asks Albert. "I wash my own brain," Kate retorts. While it lacks the self-awareness and cohesion of Submarine, this novel holds up admirably as a funny if meandering portrait of a postmodern family whose collapse is as meaningful as their coming together. A fresh perspective on modern culture, peppered with colorful dialogue that keeps the story afloat.

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August 1, 2011

British author Dunthorne scored with his first novel, Submarine, which was translated into ten languages and is now making waves as a feature film. His second novel features Don, founder of a commune in New South Wales that's faltering after 20 successful years, with his wife hiding out in a yurt, his son under the sway of a demagog, and his daughter dating a boy whose family represents the antithesis of commune values. Offbeat but socially incisive fiction from an author who's blasting off.

Copyright 2011 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

January 1, 2012
Blaen-y-Llyn, founded by Don and his wife, Freya, among others, is a commune dedicated to a natural way of life. Though once a thriving community of like-minded individuals, membership has dwindled over the years, and now even Patrick, one of the founding members, has left to escape Don's controlling nature. With Freya thinking of doing the same, Don's marriage is faltering as well. In search of stability, his teenage daughter, Kate, escapes to college, but living with her boyfriend's family isn't the haven of normalcy she was hoping for, and she left her beloved younger brother behind in her hasty exit. As all of the characters come to terms with the reality of their lives and relationships, a story unfolds that is about midlife crises, adolescent dramas, and self-discovery. With well-developed characters and a dark humor reminiscent of that in his first novel, Submarine (2008), Dunthorne delivers hilarity and heartbreak while redefining the essence of normality in this story about what makes a family and what makes a family dysfunctional.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)