An audio book.
London. Lorimer Black is a loss adjuster. He finds a client, Mr Dupree, hanged. Lorimer's mother was a Romanian gypsy. He sleeps in Greenwich University's Sociology Dept, in a sleep lab run by Dr Alan Bury, a neighbour, who wants Lorimer to have lucid dreams.
His 3 older sisters live with his mother, grandmother, niece and ill father. His original name was Milomre Blocj but he changed it after returning from University at Inverness - as far from his family as possible. At school his exam results had been oxbridge level.
His new colleague, Torquil Helvoir-Jayne, thinks that Hogg, a boss, was involved in a shady deal - an over-insured building caught fire before it was ready. Lorimer has been sleeping for 3 years with Stella, who has a teenage daughter. He's become infatuated with a girl he's seen on TV in the company's ads - Flavia Malinverno. He writes in his journal which is called "The book of transfiguration". He collects antique helmets.
This sounds picaresque, baggy, like a Martin Amis novel. The author, by adding extracts from the journal and from dreams, can easily include extra material without needing to care about continuity. Family and work offer ways to introduce a spectrum of 2D characters. The helmet hobby doesn't make sense - a symbolic use for it is anticipated.
He negotiates a deal with the owners of the burnt-out building. Hogg tells him he's going to sack Torquil. Lorimer's next job involves a rock star, David Watts. He sees Flavia in person and asks her out. She agrees, though she's married - to a juggler.
Dimfne, a female colleague, asks to have sex with Lorimer. He declines. Torquil's wife catches her husband in bed with a young girl. She makes him leave the house. He's sacked. He asks Lorimer for help. Lorimer lets him move in. Lorimer's car is torched. He's attacked in the street. Hogg becomes suspicious of him, puzzled by some aspects of the arson case. Flavia tells him that she's told her husband Gilbert about him. The sister of the hanged man says that Lorimer's pressure forced the suicide (though actually Hogg applied the pressure). His father dies. A neighbour dies - Lorimer looks after her dog. Stella wants to move away - she's bought a fish farm and wants him to go with her. Everything seem to be going wrong.
He goes to a party. Gilbert is performing there with injuries that show he was the one who'd attacked Lorimer. The arsonist thanks him. The rock star thanks him. Torquil thanks him. Lorimer's puzzled. He writes up the arson case, showing how his colleagues are implicated. Alan tells him that his sleep difficulties are because he equates sleep to death, and he fears death. At home, depressed, he puts on a helmet and can't remove it. He goes to hospital. Flavia is offered a job in Vienna and asks him to go with her. No promises.
Like Lorimer, the author had many plates to keep spinning. I felt sympathy/empathy for nobody, though in other contexts the writing would make me feel something. The author just about holds things together - the localised farce doesn't destroy the whole. His write-up of the arson case restores the coherence - there are multiple scapegoats, and he's one of them. He adjusts to his losses. He finally has a plan.
Other reviews
- Caroline Boucher
- A.O. Scott (Helvoir-Jayne ... is one of the great comic creations of recent literature)
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