Meeting the English

March 2, 2015
In this trenchant debut novel, poet and memoirist Clanchy (Antigona and Me) reveals her humor, humanity, and striking facility with language amid potentially tragic events. The felling of a onetime famous playwright, Phillip Prys, by a stroke in his London home mirrors the dismantling of authoritarian world powers in 1989. Earnest and sensitive 17-year-old Struan Robertson, persuaded by his English teacher to apply for a position as Phillip's caretaker, travels from central Scotland to meet Phillip's dysfunctional familyâhis children, Juliet and Jake; their mother, Myfanwy; and his current wife, Shirinâwhose compassion for Phillip varies. The summer is exceptionally hot, and while their elders struggle variously to adjust to Phillip's incapacity, the younger generation is in heat. By the novel's end, all the characters have faced trials that uncover inner tenderness. Clanchy shifts the narrative perspective among Struan, Phillip, Juliet, and Myfanwy, interlacing poignant analogy, vivid description, and nuanced characterization with arresting metaphor. A glossary of English slang would be useful for most American readers, but this novel will amuse and captivate regardless.

January 1, 2015
Tragedy and farce combine in a Scottish-born poet's notable debut novel, which follows an innocent abroad in London during one very hot, transformative summer.In a spiky modern comedy with dark undertones, the English whom Clanchy introduces are mainly Londoners, many of them with origins in other nations, like successful Welsh novelist and playwright Phillip Prys, felled by a stroke in the book's opening pages. Phillip's incapacity galvanizes his second wife, Myfanwy, and her children, drawing them-and their mixed motives-to Phillip's lovely and valuable home in Yewtree Row, now the residence of his third wife, beautiful Iranian artist Shirin. Into this complicated and unreliable family group walks Struan Robertson, a clever, upright but unworldly 17-year-old from Scotland, hired on the strength of experience gained in an old people's home, to take care of Phillip. Issues of life and death, money and sex swirl around the characters in the suffocating heat of the summer of 1989, which lends a sultry, sometimes-magical edge, especially in the sylvan setting of Hampstead Heath and its swimming ponds. Struan's coming-of-age will be matched by transformations near and far, several of the local ones involving mismatched young couples, reminiscent of A Midsummer Night's Dream. Clanchy's prose is striking, moving easily from sharp to lyrical, while the predicaments in Yewtree Row swoop from serious to slapstick. In particular, the passages devoted to Phillip's perspective-a larger-than-life character now trapped within a silent, slack body-movingly capture his new, remote, sometimes-terrifying dream world. As autumn arrives and the heat of this momentous year (think Berlin Wall, Tiananmen Square) dissipates, Clanchy pushes her characters forward in a final flourish both grave and graceful.Fresh, funny and at times piercing, Clanchy's novel introduces a savvy, impressive new voice.

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February 1, 2015
Up in Cuik, Scotland, Struan Robertson decides to take a gap year before going on to the university. Experienced in caring for the incapacitated (including his own dad), he answers an ad for a young man to push bathchair for renowned playwright Phillip Prys, who has had a stroke. Arriving in London for the first time, Struan is discomfited by a record-breaking heat wave and by the discord he finds in the posh household that Phillip once dominated. No one seems to care about Phillip nownot his new, young, Iranian-born wife, an artist who is preoccupied by her gallery opening; not Myfwanwy, Phillip's discarded first wife, who is bent on reclaiming the house she shared with him during their 25-year marriage; not son Jake, a self-involved Oxford student; not Juliet, Phillip's overweight, insecure, and sharply observant 16-year-old daughter. For all of them, Struan's arrival heralds a transformation. Struan doesn't quite convince as a 17-year-old, but readers who like comic British fiction will enjoy this antic, acerbic novel, which was shortlisted for the 2013 Costa First Novel Award.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)

October 1, 2014

Short-listed for the Costa First Novel Award and the recipient of multiple strong UK reviews ("very entertaining," the Guardian), this dark-edged charmer stars Struan Robertson, brilliant but orphaned at age 17, who leaves Scotland for a job in summer-baked 1989 London. Struan finds himself caring for formerly famous playwright Phillip Prys, who has suffered a massive stroke and whose closest and dearest--two teenage children, two wives, and a literary agent--can't be bothered.

Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

December 1, 2014

Meet the Pryses, London's model family, circa 1989. The pater, Philip, is a literary lion who scored big with a play about life down in the Welsh mines, and then subsequently moved to Hampstead. A recent stroke has left him incapacitated. A former wife, an interior designer with designs on the Hampstead property, glides in and out of Philip's life, measuring the curtains, and coffins. Their two offspring are both right rotters. Philip's current trophy wife is Iranian, paints exquisite miniatures, and has a roving eye. Into this menagerie steps Struan Robertson, an upright, smart but naive Scotsman who is hired to look after the invalid. After a full dose of the Pryse family, he might be excused for concluding: "Lord, what fools these Londoners be!" VERDICT Short-listed for 2013's Costa First Novel Award, this sharp-eyed satire of 1980s London is hardly the work of a novice. Clanchy is an established poet who brings to her portrait of Thatcher-era London an assured beauty of language and acid detail. The effect is that of a brilliant, multicolored fireworks display illuminating the antics of the residents of the London Zoo. [See Prepub Alert, 9/15/14.]--Bob Lunn, Kansas City, MO

Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.