The career and erotic adventures of an impertinent young Londoner
who might as well be Bridget Jones's evil twin brother.Structured
as a diary, Hollingshead's fizzy first novel recounts a year in the
callow life of (outrageously overpaid) investment bank wunderkind
Jack Lancaster, after he has suffered the slings and arrows of his
girlfriend Lucy's maddening mood swings and moved on to pastures
new, and increased frustrations. "My job stinks, my girlfriend
hates me and I'm a pessimistic, ungrateful sod," Jack confides to
his unemployable friend, Flatmate Fred (a nicely sketched character
who rather resembles the saturnine best buddy Bill Murray played in
the film Tootsie). Jack's "soulless, humorless" boss, Mr. Cox,
harasses and annoys him, gorgeous coworker Leila stirs him to
unprecedented heights of sexual fantasy and drunken pranks
undertaken with male friends take the edge off Jack's
unhappiness-until (almost two-thirds into the novel) sardonic
noodling gives way to something actually resembling a plot. Lucy's
pregnancy complicates his life in unexpected ways. Finally managing
to detach himself from the job he despises, Jack embarks on a
therapeutic South American trip (which, true to this novel's skimpy
narrative content, is described only in impudent e-mail messages
sent back to fellow Londoners). Then a grievous personal loss
awakens the party boy to the facts of his mortality and his
shallowness ("I am an unworthy piece of inconsequential matter"),
and he becomes, God help us, a better man. Leila proves not
entirely unattainable, and the novel ends on a surprisingly happy
New Year's Eve. The change of heart is totally, fatally
unconvincing. At his worst (and hence best), Jack is an opinionated
snot with a ready wit. Hearing him fulminate constitutes the only
good reason for staying the course of this feisty, funny, but
really rather unsatisfying story.Hollingshead has the chops, but
doesn't seem to have much of a repertoire. Maybe next time. (Kirkus
Reviews)
'Twenty Something' introduces us to Jack Lancaster, who, at only 25
is far too young to be having a mid-life crisis, but who's going to
have a pretty good shot at it anyway.
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