One For My Baby

February 16, 2004
This third novel from the author of the immensely appealing Man and Boy
is the amusing story of sad sack Alfie, who has returned to London from Hong Kong following the death of his wife, Rose, the one and only true love of his life, in a scuba diving accident. Alfie, 34, is given to making sensitive, introspective remarks such as "she was my reason" and "That's what love did to me. Love messed up my heart." An affable enough fellow, he's barely living life in his skin as an English language teacher at Churchill's International School, narcissistically sleeping with his students while trying to cope with his parents' breakup and his grandmother's illness and death. Of course, he gradually comes out of his sleepwalking existence to recognize the error of his ways and begin down a path of spiritual fulfillment that includes tai chi instruction and the insight of professional TV wrestler the Slab and his book, Smell the Fear, He-Bitch
. There are some lovely moments in the novel, when the author subtly reveals the details of Alfie's loss, mixed in with some clever humor, such as when he plays on the class differences between Alfie's lawyer pal Josh and Alfie's cleaning woman girlfriend, a romance that heads somewhat predictably in the direction of Pygmalion
and Educating Rita
. At its best, the novel is enjoyable fluff. One only wishes the author had created in Alfie a more dynamic character worthier of the reader's sympathies.

Alfie Budd returns to England from Hong Kong where he has taught English to émigrés and where his wife has died. He is faced with his parents' marital disaster, his grandmother's aging, and a string of affairs with his students, all while trying to learn the benefits of T'ai Chi. This rich novel filled with philosophical homilies is excellent as printed, but as Gerard Doyle reads it, the humanness of every line flows through the narrative profoundly. One wants to catch these thoughts and memorize them. Every character is understandable and recognizable, in particular because Doyle sets aside his ego and becomes the medium through whom we visit the world of Alfie Budd. J.P. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award (c) AudioFile 2003, Portland, Maine