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.
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