tl;dr

A witty novel about saving the badgers and a man who struggles to let go.

opening remarks

Rob Palk is funny on Twitter.  Not be the best reason to read his novel, but I could do with a laugh.

knee-jerk observations

Stu’s wife – they’ve been married for four months – is leaving him, permanently it would appear so that she can save the badgers.  Stu, as you might guess, is less than impressed:

Stu, still bewildered and upset that his wife has left him, attends a Halloween party.  This slice of dialogue is both familiar – was I at this gathering? – and funny.

Stuart’s parents-in-law (soon to be ex) are the once dazzling members of the literati:

Out of desperation and the hope of getting Marie’s parents onside, Stuart has told them the outright lie that their daughter is an alcoholic.  Stuart’s reaction to Frank’s misery at the news marks Stuart out as a bit of a prick.  It is funny though… “he should fucking well hug himself”:

I get the distinct impression that Marie’s leaving was only partly do with protesting the upcoming badger cull:

Badger facts!  (Featuring a neat reference to Kirkdale Books). 

Rob Palk recognises a great turn of phrase when he sees one.  Bashful fascist indeed.

When he was still married to Marie, Stuart became violently ill.  At first, he was diagnosed with the flu but when the vision in his right eye didn’t improve he got a second opinion, only to discover that he had a blood clot in the brain.  Stuart, who has this unhelpful nack of speaking first, thinking later, upsets his Neurologist hours before surgery.  As is always the case when it comes to offending Neurologists, the point of contention is Ian McEwan and his novel Saturday:

Palk gives excellent character description.  It’s one of the joys of the book.

The novel, or at least the middle third, is a series of flashbacks detailing Stuart’s health scare and Marie’s obsession with badgers.  In the toilets at a Pizza joint while taking a slash at the urinals, Stuart seeks advice from his famous father-in-law Frank about Marie:

It’s one thing to be in love, but Stuart’s refusal to accept that he and Marie are done, that he’s been replaced by badgers, casts him as a pathetic character.  Everyone can see this except for Stuart:

Because he can’t help himself, Stuart has gone all in with the save the badger protestors, just so he can be close to Marie and also keep an eye on Henry, her new (sort of) boyfriend.  It’s not a great look for Stuart given he doesn’t give a shit about the badgers.

The badgers and their defenders are played for laughs, but to his credit Palk presents the arguments for both sides, including those who support the cull to stop the spread of bovine tuberculosis.  (Yes, I know, recent studies have shown that badgers aren’t at fault).  Also, I really like this impassioned speech:

Marie takes Stuart for a coffee to clear the air and point out what’s already apparent to the reader: the marriage is dead.  What I find refreshing about the excerpt below is that after spending so much time in Stuart’s head we get Marie’s perspective on the relationship, unvarnished, unabridged:

I try not to post too much beyond the halfway point of a novel, I give enough away as it is, but in the case below couldn’t help myself.  “Only fucking poetry”. HA!

The Gist Of It

Toward the beginning of April, I read Joe Dunthorne’s The Adulterants (I reviewed it here).  It’s about an insecure writer’s growing paranoia over his wife’s fidelity.  I ended April with Rob Palk’s Animal Lovers (yes, I’m a month late in posting this review.  If you want my “hot off the press” thoughts on each book I read I suggest you follow me on Twitter).  It’s about an insecure writer’s obsessive desire to get back together with his estranged wife. 

Joe Dunthorne’s Ray and Rob Palk’s Stuart could be the same person.  They are both directionless men – neither have made much of a success from their writing – whose identities are entirely wrapped up in their relationship with their wives.  Having read both books, coincidentally, a few weeks apart, I can’t help but wonder if the sad-sack man, deluded, obsessed, paranoid and self-destructive is a new trend in fiction, a symptom of patriarchy in decline and the empowerment of women?  That’s not to say that either Palk or Dunthorne are shilling for the Men Rights Activist movement, their men aren’t “incels” or “toxic”, neither are they a critique on feminism.  But they are sad and forlorn and pathetic. They are men who invariably make the wrong choices, which pave the way for their decline.  This makes them frustrating, tear your hair out characters, but what’s terrific about both novels is that Dunthorne and Palk know this and to varying degrees use humour, witty dialogue and a well-drawn cast of secondary characters to smooth out the more depressing aspects.  As a result, we don’t hate either Ray or Stuart.

Palk though is the meaner of the two authors.  Whereas Dunthorne provides Ray with a happy ending of sorts, Stuart doesn’t get the same relief.  Justifiably he has to pay for his uncontrollable obsessions, his inability to let go of his wife when it’s clear that she has moved on to greener pastures.  Even when Stuart is with Kerry – easily my favourite person in the novel – professing his love you know that thoughts about Marie, his ex-wife, are lingering away in his subconscious.  This is a story about a man who never truly comprehends what it means to love a person, who for all his protestations about being a good man, not quick to anger, views his wife as property that’s been stolen rather than a woman who, whether rightly or wrongly, decides that she can’t be married to Stuart anymore. 

What’s both sad and frustrating, but brilliantly achieved by Palk, is that Stuart is an observant man, who can appreciate the contradictions and insanity of the 21st Century but is unable to apply that sharp intellect onto his situation.  When it comes to marriage and love and, I suppose, badgers, out of control passion drowns out common sense.