- "Paris for One" - a novella. Nell, a cautious girl, is let down at the very last moment by her boy friend Pete for a weekend in Paris. There she meets a waiter who's a budding writer. The boyfriend turns up, bullied into it by Nell's friends. She abandons him to spend more time with her new friend. Nell's content for the weekend to be nothing but a happy memory.
Months later, when she's offered promotion on the grounds that she's a safe pair of hands, she rushed off to Paris and finds that he's been thinking about her too. "'Well,' she says, 'I always did like a story with a happy ending ...'".
The plotting is tight (for example - it's explained why Pete carries his passport with him long before it becomes necessary for the plot). There are coincidences, and characters unpremeditatively do things that help advance the plot. The main character oscillates as new data emerges from unlikely sources - will she return immediately to England? Will she go out with her new friend? Once a character is a labelled (as good, unreliable, cheeky, etc) that aspect is all we see of them - except for the receptionist, who isn't as unfriendly as she first appears to be. One phrase sounded rather out of date - "The amount of alcohol he has consumed may be slowing his Rolodex of excuses" (p.65) - "Between the Tweets" - A minor TV show host is anonymously accused of having an affair and goes to an agency to clear his name. The agency discovers that the rumours have been spread by his wife to raise his profile. Before she has time to tell him, he confesses to an affair with his make-up girl.
- "Love in the Afternoon" - a wife is irritated by her husband suddenly taking her for a weekend away from the family. In the hotel she worries about the dog and kids, and moans about her husband's general behaviour. The husband accuses her of ingratitude. When she discovers from a waiter that the break's a freebie from the husband's company she could get angrier still, but when she's told that he could have had a cash alternative she becomes happy again.
- "A Bird in the Hand" - A couple go to a party. The wife meets an ex, discovers that their split was the result of a misunderstanding, then leaves early with her current husband.
- "Crocodile Shoes" - Wearing someone else's expensive shoes, Sam pulls off business deals she wouldn't normally have succeeded in. When she returns the shoes, she buys a pair for herself.
- "Holdups" - Alice chatted to the armed, stocking-headed man who was holding her hostage in a jewellery shop while two other men dealt with the goods. She managed to get the three arrested, but only pointed out two of them at a later identity parade. She starts going out with the third. No.
- "Honeymoon in Paris" - A shorter novella than "Paris for One". In Paris, 2002, Liv is having a disastrous honeymoon because her husband, an architect, is trying to mix business with pleasure. In another timeline set in Paris, 1912, Sophie, a shop-girl has just married a painter. She's warned that he's bound to sleep with his models again. The sections alternate between the two settings, both women angry that they're going to be secondary to the husband's work. Left alone, Liv joins a gallery queue, meets a man, separates from him at the entrance and meets him again (which happened in "Paris for One" too). She sees a painting of Sophie done by her husband which she uses to prove a point to her own husband. Both women realise that there's an element of self-sabotage in their behaviour. At the end both husbands show that they're attentive after all.
- "Last Year’s Coat" - A family has to cut back. The wife wants a coat and envies her colleagues who seem able to afford anything. At the end her father-in-law gifts her a coat and she discovers that a colleague is heavily in debt.
- "Thirteen Days with John C." - A woman with a boring husband finds a phone with flirty texts from John C. She begins to respond to them, buys a sexy dress, arranges to meet him at a pub. His wife is there, having intercepted the call. She accuses the woman of having an affair. The woman returns to her own husband, retaining part of her new personality.
- "Margot" - Em's husband has left her. She's stuck at an airport, returning from the USA to her family in England for Xmas. A stranger (an older lady who, it's later revealed, might have terminal cancer) cheers her up by going round the shops. "In the Ladies, Em gazed at her reflection. A little flushed from the alcohol, yes, but the mascara and the red lips had turned her into someone she didn't recognize. She straightened up, smoothing her hair. Then she smiled." (p322)
- "The Christmas List" - A wife is dashing around London just before Xmas getting things for her picky mother-in-law who's about to stay. She suddenly decides to fly to friends in Barcelona instead.
There's repetition of plot and character, and of phrases too - "checks the clock on the wall for the eighty-ninth time" (p.3); "There'd been eighty-nine excuses she could have made" (p.167). The only phrase that sounded clumsy to me was - "she watches it travel its corkscrew course down, buoyed by passing winds, until it grows too small and is lost from view" (p.205). I can see why the book sold well.
Other reviews
- Shelley Fallows (They are light and yet there is an underlying significance about them that resonates, that we can relate to. The characters are likeable but not without their flaws and in this Moyes expertly gives them a realistic, human touch. As each of us can be, they are vulnerable, feel pain, sorrow, disappointment, love, happiness and have their own difficulties to overcome.)
- Kirkus Review (Most of the short stories here follow a similar format: a woman who is unsatisfied with her relationship stumbles into a new situation or makes an out-of-character decision. ... Women try out new identities, styles, and relationships and then either make triumphant changes or realize how wonderful their lives really were in the first place. This leads to a series of stories that can feel a bit homogenous, but Moyes’ engaging writing keeps things enjoyable.)
No comments:
Post a Comment