Twenty Something

This book by Iain Hollingshead is a good laugh. (Not in the bad sense..) His debut novel, Twenty Something is about an unfulfilled twenty-something who's had it with his dead end job (as a banker) and wants to have it out with the world. Male 'chick lit' has been an up-and-coming genre, especially in the comedic circuits, and while it doesn't quite compare with Mike Gayle and Matt Dunn, it is after all a good attempt at converting journalistic experience to humour writing.

The book starts off a tad desperate, with Hollingshead trying too hard to evoke comic effect. Most debut novels do, after all. (Apart from Best Man, Matt Dunn) Hollingshead gets into the swing of things and novel-writing in the second half of the book, the considerably better half, where he starts writing in a letter-email medium, as compared to the diary medium in the first half (a shameless rip off bridget jones and adrian mole, non?). The main problem with the initial chapters lies in the fact that Hollingshead has not fully established his characters, and immediately jumps into their personal lives, expecting the reader to catch up as an accidental observer who happened into Jack Lancaster's life. A good novel should always have some buildup into the main plotline (assuming there's one), but one can't overdo it too, like in To Kill A Mockingbird where the initial chapters seem to exist chiefly for soporific effect.

The rude letters and emails and the rampant anti-establishment vibe is a huge cliche, but at least they are well-crafted - if nothing else, the packaging of a load of bollocks is important, to disguise the said load of bollocks. And he does it well too, being rude seems to be a huge talent. The plot turn at the end seems to be taking the cliche a tad too far, where young Lancaster takes over his father's job at a prep school in England, teaching French to ten year olds. The new academic, boys school atmosphere has been cooked to carbon, in Dead Poets' Society, in Dahl's Boy, in the Freedom Writers, etc.

Favourite characters include the wiley Mr. Cox, whose use of Latin in every two sentences (primitive Latin, should I say) builds him up as the stuck-up, ostentatious bourgeoisie who buys his way into anything and everything. His son's learning of Latin vulgarities (chip off the old block) is a good parallel, especially in the prep school setting. All in all, it is a feel-good book, one that reiterates social norms for seemingly no reason at all. If the humour isn't lost on you, you might enjoy it very much. (I did.)

Anon.