A Funny Old Year (Paperback)

At 58, polytechnic lecturer Mike Barron finds himself abruptly 'retired', and it seems a good moment to take stock. His long-term lover, Rosie, now a widow, is strongly hinting at a more stable relationship, and bachelor Mike must decide whether marriage is, finally, what he wants, too. He retreats to a place which seems to be right for such contemplation: a small, insignificant seaside resort threatened with imminent 'globalisation', where nobody knows him, and rents a large, tatty, house, secretly anticipating, alongside the meditation on his future, one last, glorious, sexual fling. He has always found women 'easy', and considers himself something of a successful Gay Lothario. At first it seems that age is no bar. His eyes might be dimming, his teeth increasingly insecure and most of his hair non-existent (and he might be known, in the local Bank, derisively, as 'a bit of an old Romeo') but the girls - and women - still respond. It is only gradually that it becomes clear, at least to the reader, that most of them have different agendas, and are using him for their own purposes. And part of him does feel guilty. He misses Rosie, more and more as time passes, and Rosie herself becomes increasingly impatient. The possibility of a more settled, comfortable, if mundane, existence, grow ever-more attractive. The book is described as 'a glorious comedy' and it does have hilariou moments, some verging on the farcical; yet under, and behind, the comed there is a substratum of sadness, and irony - and there's a sting in the tail. Alan Brownjohn is best-known as a poet, and poets are seldom entirely frivolous. This portrait of late middle-age is at once clear-eyed, and empathetic. (Kirkus UK)

Mike Barron is not as young as he was - though he's not quite ready to accept it. Fifty eight years old, redundant, and showing all the signs of late middle age, he still manages to deceive himself into believing that he can attract women. But when the husband of his long-term lover Rosie dies he finds himself having to decide whether the affair should end and marriage begin. His answer is escape - a trial separation in a seemingly quiet seaside town. And so he begins a very strange and eventful year; a year in which to decide whether he really is grown up enough to face responsibility. This is Alan Brownjohn's third novel. The Way You Tell Them won the Author's Club Award for best first novel of its year. His second, The Long Shadows, was hailed in The New Statesman as the best fiction to come out of the 1989-90 changes in Eastern Europe and described as 'a consummate literary thriller'. In A Funny Old Year he rings the changes again with a glorious comedy.

General

Imprint:	Dewi Lewis Publishing
Country of origin:	United Kingdom
Release date:	June 2001
First published:	September 2002
Authors:	Alan Brownjohn
Dimensions:	216 x 152 x 14mm (L x W x T)
Format:	Paperback
Pages:	192
ISBN-13:	978-1-899235-63-6
Categories:	Books > Fiction > General & literary fiction > Modern fiction
LSN:	1-899235-63-9
Barcode:	9781899235636

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