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England's Lane (2012)

by Joseph Connolly(Favorite Author)

3 of 5 Votes: 5

ISBN

1780877188 (ISBN13: 9781780877181)

languge

English

genre

Fiction

publisher

Quercus

review 1: Stirred a lot of memories. I was born in 1958, albeit up North, that's probably why it's reminiscent of my childhood;progress took a little longer to arrive up there. I lived in a terraced street among lots of characters whose stories I partially understood as being a child things were hushed up and only by listening carefully, when grown ups didn't think you were taking any notice, were you able to pick up the gossip, which inevitably, being filtered through a child's understanding sometimes were beyond comprehension and only became clear years later on reflection. If I had the ability of an author such as Joseph Connolly I too could have produced a novel like this one based on the people and their stories I recall in that one street.Connelly captures the feel of the time... mores and sadly attitudes were extremely different then or shall we say were allowed to be expressed in public, whereas now at least society frowns on morally obnoxious views, consequently I can't take task with him for being true to what I remember as presumably he wanted his voices to be authentic and in this I think he succeeded.
review 2: Never read any of his books before but on the strength of this one I won't be reading anymore. I live in Belsize Park and the author reviews local eateries and wrote such a funny and damning piece on a local hotel which had a new chef and restaurant and knowing England's Lane well I had to take the plunge...He does write stream of consciousness pieces with his characters, the shopkeepers in the Lane, and it tweeks memories of products and brands commonplace in 1959 but to my mind it has little depth and is rather empty. Best bit is the author's description of what he feels a writer should be;"The novel...is no more than a baggy contrivance, a ramshackle edifice without foundation-alluring only as is a tawdry bubble, a bright-painted Jezebel jammed and caked with gimcrack coincidence so as to insult the intellect, while peopled by the flimsiest shades that defy all absorption or credulity." Tongue in cheek and the Daily Mail says "May well be his masterpiece." less

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