Books: Short cuts

Rob Fleming is a 35-year-old record-shop owner with a psyche badly damaged by the pop-music cliches that keep real life - growing up, commitment, successful coupledom - at bay. He's just been dumped for the sixth time but he still knows the pulling power of a carefully crafted compilation tape....

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Published inThe Observer (London)
Main Author KATHRYN WILLGRESS, ROSALIND POWELL, TOBIA JONES, TOBIAS HILL, JAMES MALPASS, LINDSAY BAKER AND JENNIFER SELWAY
Format Newspaper Article
LanguageEnglish
Published London (UK) Guardian News & Media Limited 28.04.1996
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Summary:Rob Fleming is a 35-year-old record-shop owner with a psyche badly damaged by the pop-music cliches that keep real life - growing up, commitment, successful coupledom - at bay. He's just been dumped for the sixth time but he still knows the pulling power of a carefully crafted compilation tape. This, the first novel by Nick Hornby (above), is a moving and painfully funny explanation of why men are as they are " as such it makes a terrific sequel to the non-fiction Fever Pitch " and is written in a confessional voice that shamelessly exploits those old and seductive stand-bys: disarming honesty and an endless supply of good jokes. Set in a New York Asian community, [Adam] Zameenzad's comic novel follows the quest of 11-year-old Lahya who longs to transform himself from a Bengali male into a beautiful, white, middle-class English woman (like his mother, whom he adores). So he makes a pact with the goddess Kali who promises a result if he makes her a sacrifice. It's a brave attempt to explore racial and sexual confusion in such a bizarre context, but any sparks of camp humour or pangs of painful adolescence are lost in the plot.
ISSN:0029-7712