Developing frivolous complications
David Montrose
THIS IS IT by Joseph Connolly Faber, £8.99, pp. 310 Modern specimens of the British comic novel generally bear some resemblance to the following identikit: a misfortune-prone protagonist, beset by rampant complications (often involving the threat of disgrace); a motley troupe of supporting players; a farcical web of plots and sub-plots (usually founded on sex and money). In This Is It (as in its admirable predecessor, Poor Souls), Joseph Connolly gives the old lag a facelift by accentuating these features. Even before the novel starts, his middle-aged anti-hero, Eric Pizer (rhymes with Liza), has acquired complica- tions in excess of the recommended dose.
For years, he has maintained — some- times precariously — a double life. During the week, he is resident landlord of a rooming-house in Hampstead. Among the occupants is Eric's latest girlfriend, Fiona, whose many flaws — she's rude, self- centred, extravagant, unscrupulous, clumsy, owner of a hair-trigger temper and ready fists — are offset by her ability to excite and satisfy his lust.
At weekends, he stays with his comfort- ing wife, Bunty, whose main attribute is culinary expertise, at her cottage near Bath. Fiona believes that he spends each week- end with a friend (non-existent) in Read- ing, collaborating on a novel (existent, but stuck at 15 words); Bunty believes he spends the week, outside daily commuting range, at a job (non-existent) in publishing. More recently, Eric has attracted an expo- nent of blackmail-with-menaces: Slingsby, who has learned, inexplicably, about his immoral earnings (one tenant is an ultra- discreet prostitute).
Connolly wastes no time in aggravating Eric's situation; the opening sentence deposits him in front of a London bus. A fractured left tibia means he must contend with a cast and crutches for the balance of the novel. Subsequent vicissitudes bring, in knockabout fashion, further physical dam- age and mounting adversity. Above all, Slingsby learns somehow about Bunty and ups his demands beyond Eric's means. Eric responds by proceeding rapidly towards the end of his tether.
Connolly surrounds the central action with a summary-defying welter of sideshows. The acrimony, for instance, between Eric's friends, Jack and Penny Shilling, which has marital violence at its root (she is a masochist; he refuses to beat her); the hopeless adoration of Fiona by Eric's unworldly factotum, Henry Vole, who finds consolation in sense-dulling intakes of cough syrup and perusing his faded collection of what passed for soft porn in the Fifties. Practically everyone has a secret (how Fiona and Jack spend their Saturday afternoons is especially signifi- cant, and the subject of Connolly's deftest twist); there are regular bouts of carnal activity, conventional and otherwise. Even Eric, despite his cares and impedimenta, manages to receive the favours (on sepa- rate occasions) of two eminently desirable women. The first is a demonstratively (and almost plausibly) infatuated teenager, Helen — Penny's (though — another twist — not Jack's) daughter. The complication level again climbs.
Adding and elaborating, Connolly chops adroitly between the novel's various fronts, ensuring that the narrative never dallies in one place at the expense of others. This momentum also curtails the damage when his invention does flag: with a running gag about a pair of builders who visit protract- ed botchery on Eric's house, with Helen's suicide attempt, thwarted by a failure to distinguish sleeping tablets from laxatives. Although a touch contrived, the strokes of fate which resolve matters — explaining the mystery of Slingsby's knowledge, unclouding Eric's future (a contrast with the dark ending of Poor Souls) — are whol- ly in keeping with the capricious, unreality- tinged world Connolly portrays. Of his characters, Eric and Jack alone possess real depth — their streams of thought are recurrently transcribed — but the remain- der still brim with cartoonish vigour. Fol- lowing a successful first novel can be a tough hurdle; Joseph Connolly has cleared it with daylight showing.
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