Cold Water

January 13, 2003
"These days I try to keep everything remote as a matter of course. Just feel the warm rush of things washing over." Whimsical 20-year-old British barmaid Carmel McKisco wanders from one tenuous relationship and fleeting flirtation to another in Riley's first novel, about blue-collar life in Manchester and London. Carmel's wistful voice is punctuated by occasional bursts of wry humor, and it effectively carries the first half of the book as the narrator describes her on-again, off-again relationship with slippery charmer Tony. Carmel also muses on her passing attraction to a bar patron named Kevin Kinsella, as well as a hero from her adolescence who reappears in her orbit, a washed-up singer named Steven whose life has come to a dead end. The thinly plotted book loses narrative momentum, however, in its second half, meandering toward a predictable conclusion. Carmel's loneliness and her poignant—but never maudlin—dreams of a comfortable, fulfilling life are well rendered, and this might have been an intriguing novel if Riley had used those desires as a vehicle for a more substantial plot. As it is, the book has much in common with other belated-coming-of-age tales about twentysomethings adrift. Riley's obvious talent for characterization doesn't quite compensate for the familiar material, though it does make her one to watch in the future. (Jan.)Forecast:Riley's debut was hailed by the British press, but it will have a hard time standing out in the U.S. market.