A Fabulous Piece of Work, 02 May 2008
I really enjoyed this book very much, finding it hard to put down at times. The style of writing was very entertaining, and much different to anything I have read before. I think this may have been the reason why Connolly dealt so well with the obvious problems faced by people in the time of the war.
It was very easy to picture the characters and I became 'attached' to most of them.
Yes, at times, it was a difficult read because of the situations and actions of some of those characters, but nevertheless it is a fabulous piece of work and the best book I have read in a long time.

I liked it but didn't at the same time!, 22 Jul 2007
It's quite hard to review this book because I actually think the premise of the story is sound and interesting because it takes a new take on the war and what life was like for people on the 'Home Front'. My problem with it comes from the characters and what they get up to. I could feel no sympathy for any of them because, despite the problems they had that might make you feel empathy for them, they each and every single one go and spoil it by doing something utterly repellant to someone else - but maybe that was what the author was aiming for.

This book also contains one of the most gruesome and harrowing pieces of text I've ever read. I felt physically sick!

Maybe it's a true representation of some 'ordinary' folk who are corrupted by the situation they find themselves in but I'm not sure. I actually love this author's books but did find this a bit hard to take in places...

What a letdown!!, 11 May 2007
I was looking forward to reading this book very much as it had received very good reviews. However I absolutely hated it. I disliked the style of writing and the storyline was very nasty and gruesome in places. Not for me I'm afraid.

A Fabulous Piece of Work, 02 May 2008
I really enjoyed this book very much, finding it hard to put down at times. The style of writing was very entertaining, and much different to anything I have read before. I think this may have been the reason why Connolly dealt so well with the obvious problems faced by people in the time of the war.
It was very easy to picture the characters and I became 'attached' to most of them.
Yes, at times, it was a difficult read because of the situations and actions of some of those characters, but nevertheless it is a fabulous piece of work and the best book I have read in a long time.

I liked it but didn't at the same time!, 22 Jul 2007
It's quite hard to review this book because I actually think the premise of the story is sound and interesting because it takes a new take on the war and what life was like for people on the 'Home Front'. My problem with it comes from the characters and what they get up to. I could feel no sympathy for any of them because, despite the problems they had that might make you feel empathy for them, they each and every single one go and spoil it by doing something utterly repellant to someone else - but maybe that was what the author was aiming for.

This book also contains one of the most gruesome and harrowing pieces of text I've ever read. I felt physically sick!

Maybe it's a true representation of some 'ordinary' folk who are corrupted by the situation they find themselves in but I'm not sure. I actually love this author's books but did find this a bit hard to take in places...

What a letdown!!, 11 May 2007
I was looking forward to reading this book very much as it had received very good reviews. However I absolutely hated it. I disliked the style of writing and the storyline was very nasty and gruesome in places. Not for me I'm afraid.

Poor Souls, 12 May 2006
Barry is not a very nice person. He is prone to thumping people whenever he feels like it, is not averse to long, boring and utterly pointless racist rants, and he drives around London whilst he's completely paralytic (at the risk of sounding like a wet blanket, the rampant drink driving in Connolly's novels I do find really annoying). I didn't like Barry, (I kept hoping he'd get pulled over by the cops for one thing), I didn't give a hoot what happened to him, but his relentless (largely self-inflicted) downward spiral kept me turning the pages. The people around him are all caught up in a viper's nest of intertwined relationships, which is pretty par for the course with a Joseph Connolly book. None of them (except young Nicholas, Hilary's son, the only character in the book possessed of a brain) are remotely likeable, but then I guess you don't read a Connolly book because you like the characters!

Why I knocked off a star was because the characterisation in this is pretty poor, I got the feeling that the only identity some characters have is their name! And poor Annie, Barry's longsuffering and pathetically obedient mistress, spends most of the book barely existing at all. Also I didn't understand why this book was set 10 years before it was written. You don't get much sense of the 1980s in it at all, it might just as easily have been set in 1975 or 1995. If this was meant to be a rant at the selfishness of Thatcher's children, well it didn't work because selfish, shallow, greedy people like that are like that whatever era they live in. Contrary to popular belief, it makes no odds who the Prime Minister is!!! What I will give this book the thumbs-up for though is the final revelation about Moira and Gavin, which was so downright disturbing, unexpected and awesomely horrific that I was mightily impressed!

Early Connolly, 20 May 2003
This is the book that got me hooked on Joseph Connolly. Written in a slightly less 'stream of consciousness' style than some of his later work, it is easy to read and the humour is spot on - making you cringe and nod vehemently in recognition. A good introduction to the comic genius of Connolly, for all those who love Kingsley Amis!

A Fabulous Piece of Work, 02 May 2008
I really enjoyed this book very much, finding it hard to put down at times. The style of writing was very entertaining, and much different to anything I have read before. I think this may have been the reason why Connolly dealt so well with the obvious problems faced by people in the time of the war.
It was very easy to picture the characters and I became 'attached' to most of them.
Yes, at times, it was a difficult read because of the situations and actions of some of those characters, but nevertheless it is a fabulous piece of work and the best book I have read in a long time.

I liked it but didn't at the same time!, 22 Jul 2007
It's quite hard to review this book because I actually think the premise of the story is sound and interesting because it takes a new take on the war and what life was like for people on the 'Home Front'. My problem with it comes from the characters and what they get up to. I could feel no sympathy for any of them because, despite the problems they had that might make you feel empathy for them, they each and every single one go and spoil it by doing something utterly repellant to someone else - but maybe that was what the author was aiming for.

This book also contains one of the most gruesome and harrowing pieces of text I've ever read. I felt physically sick!

Maybe it's a true representation of some 'ordinary' folk who are corrupted by the situation they find themselves in but I'm not sure. I actually love this author's books but did find this a bit hard to take in places...

What a letdown!!, 11 May 2007
I was looking forward to reading this book very much as it had received very good reviews. However I absolutely hated it. I disliked the style of writing and the storyline was very nasty and gruesome in places. Not for me I'm afraid.

Poor Souls, 12 May 2006
Barry is not a very nice person. He is prone to thumping people whenever he feels like it, is not averse to long, boring and utterly pointless racist rants, and he drives around London whilst he's completely paralytic (at the risk of sounding like a wet blanket, the rampant drink driving in Connolly's novels I do find really annoying). I didn't like Barry, (I kept hoping he'd get pulled over by the cops for one thing), I didn't give a hoot what happened to him, but his relentless (largely self-inflicted) downward spiral kept me turning the pages. The people around him are all caught up in a viper's nest of intertwined relationships, which is pretty par for the course with a Joseph Connolly book. None of them (except young Nicholas, Hilary's son, the only character in the book possessed of a brain) are remotely likeable, but then I guess you don't read a Connolly book because you like the characters!

Why I knocked off a star was because the characterisation in this is pretty poor, I got the feeling that the only identity some characters have is their name! And poor Annie, Barry's longsuffering and pathetically obedient mistress, spends most of the book barely existing at all. Also I didn't understand why this book was set 10 years before it was written. You don't get much sense of the 1980s in it at all, it might just as easily have been set in 1975 or 1995. If this was meant to be a rant at the selfishness of Thatcher's children, well it didn't work because selfish, shallow, greedy people like that are like that whatever era they live in. Contrary to popular belief, it makes no odds who the Prime Minister is!!! What I will give this book the thumbs-up for though is the final revelation about Moira and Gavin, which was so downright disturbing, unexpected and awesomely horrific that I was mightily impressed!

Early Connolly, 20 May 2003
This is the book that got me hooked on Joseph Connolly. Written in a slightly less 'stream of consciousness' style than some of his later work, it is easy to read and the humour is spot on - making you cringe and nod vehemently in recognition. A good introduction to the comic genius of Connolly, for all those who love Kingsley Amis!

Half a good book, 09 Aug 2006
I've got a good yardstick for judging my response to a novel - do I want to hurl it across the room when I finish it? This one I certainly did, not because it was bad but because it was half bad. The first half, or so, concentrating on the 1950s, was really engaging and I enjoyed the device of seeing the story through four different sets of eyes. Some of the details of home life were very poignant and memorable such as the huge importance of swapping tea cards and getting little toys in breakfast cereal. It made it all the more annoying therefore for Mr Connolly to have made me care about these characters to have it all turn out so stupidly. The huge change in the character of one of the people was so abrupt, so late and so underexplained that I can only imagine Mr Connolly was stuck with a growing manuscript and thought "Oh sod it, I'll create a deus ex machina to get the whole thing finished off."

A dark outing from Mr C., 01 Aug 2006
This book is a bit of departure from the norm for Mr C. He normally writes good (well most of them are) slapstick farces, dark satires on modern life, so this one seems more like a nostalgia-fest for him. It concerns one dysfunctional family (and I MEAN dysfunctional!), and the dark secrets that go on behind their respectable, middle-class veneer. I suspect anyone who grew up in the 1950s will enjoy Mr C recalling the sweets, the comics, the sadistic school-teachers, the excitement of the family getting their first television set, etc. Mr C is at his best when looking at the world through the eyes of young Clifford, the little lad. He has a genius ability for getting into the mindset of a child. Also, I liked the way he shows that Arthur, the monstrous, overbearing, bullying head of the family, is the way he is mainly because ... well everybody lets him get away with it. (The grim family dinner scene in the early part of the book should be compulsory reading for all the Jamie Oliver clones, who think civilisation has gone down the pan since families stopped eating round a dinner-table, believe me, this depressing scene will make you grateful for modern life and t.v dinners!). I'm disapointed in the book overall though because there's too much waffle, the plot never really seems to get started, and I simply found it all too depressing. Blimey, I know life's hard, but if we all took Mr C's nihilistic approach few of us would be able to carry on!!! It would be like living in Albert Square! Not a book I can in all honesty say I enjoyed, but it has its moments.

Love may be strange, but not as strange as this book, 24 Feb 2006
Having never read anything by Joseph Connelly before, I cannot compare this to any of his other works. However, I found this book bizarre, in a disappointing way. I found the characters too excessive, the action melodramatic to the point of making the action unbelievable, and hence I lost interest in the story. Disappointing, but ok to read if there is nothing else.

Strange... but true!, 05 Sep 2005
I am a great fan of Joseph Connolly but I was disappointed with his last outing: 'The Works'. However, this novel is right back on form. The stream of conciousness style (typical of, and unique to, Joseph Connolly) allows some fantastic insights into all of the main characters and I laughed out loud (and cringed) on more than several occasions with the characters and their attempts to cope with the world around them; especially in the first section when the children are young. There are some pretty heavy themes tackled in this novel and it's not really for the easily shocked but if you like a novel with excellent characters, a bit of comedy and the usual Connolly dose of the unexpected then I recommend you get yourself a copy!

A Fabulous Piece of Work, 02 May 2008
I really enjoyed this book very much, finding it hard to put down at times. The style of writing was very entertaining, and much different to anything I have read before. I think this may have been the reason why Connolly dealt so well with the obvious problems faced by people in the time of the war.
It was very easy to picture the characters and I became 'attached' to most of them.
Yes, at times, it was a difficult read because of the situations and actions of some of those characters, but nevertheless it is a fabulous piece of work and the best book I have read in a long time.

I liked it but didn't at the same time!, 22 Jul 2007
It's quite hard to review this book because I actually think the premise of the story is sound and interesting because it takes a new take on the war and what life was like for people on the 'Home Front'. My problem with it comes from the characters and what they get up to. I could feel no sympathy for any of them because, despite the problems they had that might make you feel empathy for them, they each and every single one go and spoil it by doing something utterly repellant to someone else - but maybe that was what the author was aiming for.

This book also contains one of the most gruesome and harrowing pieces of text I've ever read. I felt physically sick!

Maybe it's a true representation of some 'ordinary' folk who are corrupted by the situation they find themselves in but I'm not sure. I actually love this author's books but did find this a bit hard to take in places...

What a letdown!!, 11 May 2007
I was looking forward to reading this book very much as it had received very good reviews. However I absolutely hated it. I disliked the style of writing and the storyline was very nasty and gruesome in places. Not for me I'm afraid.

Poor Souls, 12 May 2006
Barry is not a very nice person. He is prone to thumping people whenever he feels like it, is not averse to long, boring and utterly pointless racist rants, and he drives around London whilst he's completely paralytic (at the risk of sounding like a wet blanket, the rampant drink driving in Connolly's novels I do find really annoying). I didn't like Barry, (I kept hoping he'd get pulled over by the cops for one thing), I didn't give a hoot what happened to him, but his relentless (largely self-inflicted) downward spiral kept me turning the pages. The people around him are all caught up in a viper's nest of intertwined relationships, which is pretty par for the course with a Joseph Connolly book. None of them (except young Nicholas, Hilary's son, the only character in the book possessed of a brain) are remotely likeable, but then I guess you don't read a Connolly book because you like the characters!

Why I knocked off a star was because the characterisation in this is pretty poor, I got the feeling that the only identity some characters have is their name! And poor Annie, Barry's longsuffering and pathetically obedient mistress, spends most of the book barely existing at all. Also I didn't understand why this book was set 10 years before it was written. You don't get much sense of the 1980s in it at all, it might just as easily have been set in 1975 or 1995. If this was meant to be a rant at the selfishness of Thatcher's children, well it didn't work because selfish, shallow, greedy people like that are like that whatever era they live in. Contrary to popular belief, it makes no odds who the Prime Minister is!!! What I will give this book the thumbs-up for though is the final revelation about Moira and Gavin, which was so downright disturbing, unexpected and awesomely horrific that I was mightily impressed!

Early Connolly, 20 May 2003
This is the book that got me hooked on Joseph Connolly. Written in a slightly less 'stream of consciousness' style than some of his later work, it is easy to read and the humour is spot on - making you cringe and nod vehemently in recognition. A good introduction to the comic genius of Connolly, for all those who love Kingsley Amis!

Half a good book, 09 Aug 2006
I've got a good yardstick for judging my response to a novel - do I want to hurl it across the room when I finish it? This one I certainly did, not because it was bad but because it was half bad. The first half, or so, concentrating on the 1950s, was really engaging and I enjoyed the device of seeing the story through four different sets of eyes. Some of the details of home life were very poignant and memorable such as the huge importance of swapping tea cards and getting little toys in breakfast cereal. It made it all the more annoying therefore for Mr Connolly to have made me care about these characters to have it all turn out so stupidly. The huge change in the character of one of the people was so abrupt, so late and so underexplained that I can only imagine Mr Connolly was stuck with a growing manuscript and thought "Oh sod it, I'll create a deus ex machina to get the whole thing finished off."

A dark outing from Mr C., 01 Aug 2006
This book is a bit of departure from the norm for Mr C. He normally writes good (well most of them are) slapstick farces, dark satires on modern life, so this one seems more like a nostalgia-fest for him. It concerns one dysfunctional family (and I MEAN dysfunctional!), and the dark secrets that go on behind their respectable, middle-class veneer. I suspect anyone who grew up in the 1950s will enjoy Mr C recalling the sweets, the comics, the sadistic school-teachers, the excitement of the family getting their first television set, etc. Mr C is at his best when looking at the world through the eyes of young Clifford, the little lad. He has a genius ability for getting into the mindset of a child. Also, I liked the way he shows that Arthur, the monstrous, overbearing, bullying head of the family, is the way he is mainly because ... well everybody lets him get away with it. (The grim family dinner scene in the early part of the book should be compulsory reading for all the Jamie Oliver clones, who think civilisation has gone down the pan since families stopped eating round a dinner-table, believe me, this depressing scene will make you grateful for modern life and t.v dinners!). I'm disapointed in the book overall though because there's too much waffle, the plot never really seems to get started, and I simply found it all too depressing. Blimey, I know life's hard, but if we all took Mr C's nihilistic approach few of us would be able to carry on!!! It would be like living in Albert Square! Not a book I can in all honesty say I enjoyed, but it has its moments.

Love may be strange, but not as strange as this book, 24 Feb 2006
Having never read anything by Joseph Connelly before, I cannot compare this to any of his other works. However, I found this book bizarre, in a disappointing way. I found the characters too excessive, the action melodramatic to the point of making the action unbelievable, and hence I lost interest in the story. Disappointing, but ok to read if there is nothing else.

Strange... but true!, 05 Sep 2005
I am a great fan of Joseph Connolly but I was disappointed with his last outing: 'The Works'. However, this novel is right back on form. The stream of conciousness style (typical of, and unique to, Joseph Connolly) allows some fantastic insights into all of the main characters and I laughed out loud (and cringed) on more than several occasions with the characters and their attempts to cope with the world around them; especially in the first section when the children are young. There are some pretty heavy themes tackled in this novel and it's not really for the easily shocked but if you like a novel with excellent characters, a bit of comedy and the usual Connolly dose of the unexpected then I recommend you get yourself a copy!

It Can't Go On , 19 May 2006
This is quite an experimental novel by Connolly, it's almost like a chain-letter of a story, in that the plot gets passed from one character to another, and eventually ends up, full-circle, back with the characters that started it all. The author seems to be attempting to show us how our lives impact on each other, even when we think a person might only be there briefly in passing. It's a brave try, and he largely pulls it off, although the beginning is far too confusing, and all the nonsense with Maria seeming to have about 3 different names (which doesn't help) should have been cut out. It's just rubbish. Maria is the type of female character Connolly seems to have a fascination for, which I don't share. She is thick, selfish, and utterly repellent. Your heart sinks a bit, oh lor here we go again, more vile women and gormless, infatuated men. Fortunately (and by golly, I was delighted with this!) she disappears out of the plot soon after the beginning, and doesn't come in again until the end!!! YES YES YES!!! Connolly is at his very best when he breaks away from the spoilt, pretentious, middle-class twits he normally writes about, and goes off to write about Real People instead. The book really comes alive from the middle onwards, when we meet Reg, the London cabby who is besotted with the girl on the checkout at his local Sainsburys, and Isobel, a downtrodden 50-year-old Building Society worker who has to care for her cantankerous elderly mother. When both Reg and Isobel get a (sadly brief) chance at happiness, the novel suddenly stops being the usual Connolly farce, and becomes something much greater indeed. More of this kind of thing, Mr C, please.

Highly recommended!, 22 Aug 2001
Superb! I've been a devotee of Joseph Connolly's uniquely dark humour for several years now, and I urge those of you not familiar with his acidic, gut-wrenching style to read 'It can't go on', a novel which careers at break-neck speed through the personal lives of its perfectly odious cast, leaving havoc in it's wake.

The general theme is that of infidelity. The women are either sexual predators or embittered housewives; the men are unthinking adulterers or failing professionals. The are moments of sublime horror and embarrassment and some touches of lyrical mastery, albeit couched in the ignoble inner rhetoric of whichever character happens to be holding forth at the time.

There's no plot as such - more a chain of events. A man is seduced by a woman at a party and subsequently thrown out of the house by his wife, an action which sets off a chain of events that shatters the lives of a spinster, a taxi driver, two bank workers and a work-shy American before returning to the rather colourless married couple who started it .

I won't say any more - I don't want to ruin it for you!

In retrospect, it does go on, 02 Feb 2001
This was, at times, a difficult read. The switch from first-person to second-person and then back to first-person again (sometimes in the same paragraph) was rather confusing. The writing style is definitely unique, though I don't quite understand the intent.

The story, however, was brilliant. I find myself thinking back to this book weeks after finishing it. At times I even quote from it. I feel as though I got to know and dislike all of the characters on a personal basis. They were all essentially slime.

But this book also reflect human nature at its worst and goes to show how our actions can result in a chain reaction that eventually may lead back to ourselves.

Does this mean that we are all slime?

I don't think so. But it does leave one wondering if this book is meant to have a moral and if so, then we should be saddened by the dismal view of humankind with which we are left at the end.

A Fabulous Piece of Work, 02 May 2008
I really enjoyed this book very much, finding it hard to put down at times. The style of writing was very entertaining, and much different to anything I have read before. I think this may have been the reason why Connolly dealt so well with the obvious problems faced by people in the time of the war.
It was very easy to picture the characters and I became 'attached' to most of them.
Yes, at times, it was a difficult read because of the situations and actions of some of those characters, but nevertheless it is a fabulous piece of work and the best book I have read in a long time.

I liked it but didn't at the same time!, 22 Jul 2007
It's quite hard to review this book because I actually think the premise of the story is sound and interesting because it takes a new take on the war and what life was like for people on the 'Home Front'. My problem with it comes from the characters and what they get up to. I could feel no sympathy for any of them because, despite the problems they had that might make you feel empathy for them, they each and every single one go and spoil it by doing something utterly repellant to someone else - but maybe that was what the author was aiming for.

This book also contains one of the most gruesome and harrowing pieces of text I've ever read. I felt physically sick!

Maybe it's a true representation of some 'ordinary' folk who are corrupted by the situation they find themselves in but I'm not sure. I actually love this author's books but did find this a bit hard to take in places...

What a letdown!!, 11 May 2007
I was looking forward to reading this book very much as it had received very good reviews. However I absolutely hated it. I disliked the style of writing and the storyline was very nasty and gruesome in places. Not for me I'm afraid.

Poor Souls, 12 May 2006
Barry is not a very nice person. He is prone to thumping people whenever he feels like it, is not averse to long, boring and utterly pointless racist rants, and he drives around London whilst he's completely paralytic (at the risk of sounding like a wet blanket, the rampant drink driving in Connolly's novels I do find really annoying). I didn't like Barry, (I kept hoping he'd get pulled over by the cops for one thing), I didn't give a hoot what happened to him, but his relentless (largely self-inflicted) downward spiral kept me turning the pages. The people around him are all caught up in a viper's nest of intertwined relationships, which is pretty par for the course with a Joseph Connolly book. None of them (except young Nicholas, Hilary's son, the only character in the book possessed of a brain) are remotely likeable, but then I guess you don't read a Connolly book because you like the characters!

Why I knocked off a star was because the characterisation in this is pretty poor, I got the feeling that the only identity some characters have is their name! And poor Annie, Barry's longsuffering and pathetically obedient mistress, spends most of the book barely existing at all. Also I didn't understand why this book was set 10 years before it was written. You don't get much sense of the 1980s in it at all, it might just as easily have been set in 1975 or 1995. If this was meant to be a rant at the selfishness of Thatcher's children, well it didn't work because selfish, shallow, greedy people like that are like that whatever era they live in. Contrary to popular belief, it makes no odds who the Prime Minister is!!! What I will give this book the thumbs-up for though is the final revelation about Moira and Gavin, which was so downright disturbing, unexpected and awesomely horrific that I was mightily impressed!

Early Connolly, 20 May 2003
This is the book that got me hooked on Joseph Connolly. Written in a slightly less 'stream of consciousness' style than some of his later work, it is easy to read and the humour is spot on - making you cringe and nod vehemently in recognition. A good introduction to the comic genius of Connolly, for all those who love Kingsley Amis!

Half a good book, 09 Aug 2006
I've got a good yardstick for judging my response to a novel - do I want to hurl it across the room when I finish it? This one I certainly did, not because it was bad but because it was half bad. The first half, or so, concentrating on the 1950s, was really engaging and I enjoyed the device of seeing the story through four different sets of eyes. Some of the details of home life were very poignant and memorable such as the huge importance of swapping tea cards and getting little toys in breakfast cereal. It made it all the more annoying therefore for Mr Connolly to have made me care about these characters to have it all turn out so stupidly. The huge change in the character of one of the people was so abrupt, so late and so underexplained that I can only imagine Mr Connolly was stuck with a growing manuscript and thought "Oh sod it, I'll create a deus ex machina to get the whole thing finished off."

A dark outing from Mr C., 01 Aug 2006
This book is a bit of departure from the norm for Mr C. He normally writes good (well most of them are) slapstick farces, dark satires on modern life, so this one seems more like a nostalgia-fest for him. It concerns one dysfunctional family (and I MEAN dysfunctional!), and the dark secrets that go on behind their respectable, middle-class veneer. I suspect anyone who grew up in the 1950s will enjoy Mr C recalling the sweets, the comics, the sadistic school-teachers, the excitement of the family getting their first television set, etc. Mr C is at his best when looking at the world through the eyes of young Clifford, the little lad. He has a genius ability for getting into the mindset of a child. Also, I liked the way he shows that Arthur, the monstrous, overbearing, bullying head of the family, is the way he is mainly because ... well everybody lets him get away with it. (The grim family dinner scene in the early part of the book should be compulsory reading for all the Jamie Oliver clones, who think civilisation has gone down the pan since families stopped eating round a dinner-table, believe me, this depressing scene will make you grateful for modern life and t.v dinners!). I'm disapointed in the book overall though because there's too much waffle, the plot never really seems to get started, and I simply found it all too depressing. Blimey, I know life's hard, but if we all took Mr C's nihilistic approach few of us would be able to carry on!!! It would be like living in Albert Square! Not a book I can in all honesty say I enjoyed, but it has its moments.

Love may be strange, but not as strange as this book, 24 Feb 2006
Having never read anything by Joseph Connelly before, I cannot compare this to any of his other works. However, I found this book bizarre, in a disappointing way. I found the characters too excessive, the action melodramatic to the point of making the action unbelievable, and hence I lost interest in the story. Disappointing, but ok to read if there is nothing else.

Strange... but true!, 05 Sep 2005
I am a great fan of Joseph Connolly but I was disappointed with his last outing: 'The Works'. However, this novel is right back on form. The stream of conciousness style (typical of, and unique to, Joseph Connolly) allows some fantastic insights into all of the main characters and I laughed out loud (and cringed) on more than several occasions with the characters and their attempts to cope with the world around them; especially in the first section when the children are young. There are some pretty heavy themes tackled in this novel and it's not really for the easily shocked but if you like a novel with excellent characters, a bit of comedy and the usual Connolly dose of the unexpected then I recommend you get yourself a copy!

It Can't Go On , 19 May 2006
This is quite an experimental novel by Connolly, it's almost like a chain-letter of a story, in that the plot gets passed from one character to another, and eventually ends up, full-circle, back with the characters that started it all. The author seems to be attempting to show us how our lives impact on each other, even when we think a person might only be there briefly in passing. It's a brave try, and he largely pulls it off, although the beginning is far too confusing, and all the nonsense with Maria seeming to have about 3 different names (which doesn't help) should have been cut out. It's just rubbish. Maria is the type of female character Connolly seems to have a fascination for, which I don't share. She is thick, selfish, and utterly repellent. Your heart sinks a bit, oh lor here we go again, more vile women and gormless, infatuated men. Fortunately (and by golly, I was delighted with this!) she disappears out of the plot soon after the beginning, and doesn't come in again until the end!!! YES YES YES!!! Connolly is at his very best when he breaks away from the spoilt, pretentious, middle-class twits he normally writes about, and goes off to write about Real People instead. The book really comes alive from the middle onwards, when we meet Reg, the London cabby who is besotted with the girl on the checkout at his local Sainsburys, and Isobel, a downtrodden 50-year-old Building Society worker who has to care for her cantankerous elderly mother. When both Reg and Isobel get a (sadly brief) chance at happiness, the novel suddenly stops being the usual Connolly farce, and becomes something much greater indeed. More of this kind of thing, Mr C, please.

Highly recommended!, 22 Aug 2001
Superb! I've been a devotee of Joseph Connolly's uniquely dark humour for several years now, and I urge those of you not familiar with his acidic, gut-wrenching style to read 'It can't go on', a novel which careers at break-neck speed through the personal lives of its perfectly odious cast, leaving havoc in it's wake.

The general theme is that of infidelity. The women are either sexual predators or embittered housewives; the men are unthinking adulterers or failing professionals. The are moments of sublime horror and embarrassment and some touches of lyrical mastery, albeit couched in the ignoble inner rhetoric of whichever character happens to be holding forth at the time.

There's no plot as such - more a chain of events. A man is seduced by a woman at a party and subsequently thrown out of the house by his wife, an action which sets off a chain of events that shatters the lives of a spinster, a taxi driver, two bank workers and a work-shy American before returning to the rather colourless married couple who started it .

I won't say any more - I don't want to ruin it for you!

In retrospect, it does go on, 02 Feb 2001
This was, at times, a difficult read. The switch from first-person to second-person and then back to first-person again (sometimes in the same paragraph) was rather confusing. The writing style is definitely unique, though I don't quite understand the intent.

The story, however, was brilliant. I find myself thinking back to this book weeks after finishing it. At times I even quote from it. I feel as though I got to know and dislike all of the characters on a personal basis. They were all essentially slime.

But this book also reflect human nature at its worst and goes to show how our actions can result in a chain reaction that eventually may lead back to ourselves.

Does this mean that we are all slime?

I don't think so. But it does leave one wondering if this book is meant to have a moral and if so, then we should be saddened by the dismal view of humankind with which we are left at the end.

This Is It , 15 May 2006
I like Joseph Connolly's dark slapstick farces, but one thing does annoy me - why do most of his characters have to be so utterly detestable? In "This Is It" we have some thoroughly obnoxious characters, most particularly that of Fiona, who is the most repellent female character I've read since Netta in Patrick Hamilton's "Hangover Square". She's vain, spoilt, greedy, shallow, childish, stupid, violent, and sexually mixed-up. And yet I get the impression that Connolly thinks we should like her, that she's a loveable mad thing. She's not. In fact, one of the things that kept me reading to the end of this was the sincere hope that she would DIE!!!! Sadly, she doesn't. All in all though this is classic Connolly fare. I'm never quite sure who is more mixed-up in his books, the men or the women, the men seem more generally hapless. Eric, the central character, is a walking disaster zone. He starts off the book colliding with a London bus, and it doesn't get much better for him from then on. He's forever getting beaten up, falling on his rear (I can see why Rik Mayall is a big fan of Connolly's work!), having to dress up in women's underwear to fool his wife he's a transvestite (don't ask), farts uncontrollably when he has sex, is losing his hair, and is so generally useless that he even needs his poor luckless little friend, Henry Vole, to change the lightbulbs round the house for him! Henry is the only really likeable character in the book, and he ends up unwittingly being a sort of saviour to them. A good read, I just wish Fiona had fallen under the bus right at the beginning instead!

Fantastic, 16 May 2003
Comic novels always say "laugh out loud funny" on the back and they never are. This one is.

This farce is a farce, 03 Jul 2001
Ah, summer reading. Something light and relaxing. Funny's good, not too taxing. Mmm, 'This is it'. Like the bus on the cover, first few pages look promising. Some decent reviews on the back, too...

Whatever Connolly was up to here, I'm afraid to say it was totally lost on me. A parody on farce? Like a typical farce, the characters seem indecent and are unlikeable, occasionally lapsing into stereotypes or plain downright wretchedness. The book seems to be setting itself up for extraordinary moments, only for the situations, particularly towards the end of the novel, to dissolve without any passion. Sorry, Joe, you lost me.

The best thing I can say about 'This is it' is that it inspired me. That's right, inspired me to do my own writing, because if this can get published...

Joseph Connolly's Summer Things is the ultimate clever English farce. Genteel Chanel-wearing Elizabeth loves nothing better than orchestrating the lives of her friends and neighbours and is given ample opportunity to do so when she goes on holiday to a smart English seaside resort with her man-mad sister Melody and her neighbours, Brian (DIY fanatic and obsessive collector of manhole covers) and clucky, baby- crazy Dotty. Estate-agent-husband Howard has his own private reasons for wanting to stay at home, while seventeen-year-old daughter Katie is off to Chicago on an illicit vacation with an older man.

In Summer Things Connolly blends to perfection that sort of smutty, innuendo-driven humour that the British are so good at with sharp social satire, exposing the lies frequently embedded in the very foundations of cosy middle-class married life and laying bare the secret tragedies hiding within the rib-cages of even the most ludicrous of his characters. Within this captivating web of deception, lie some truly unexpected twists. --Anna Davis

A Fabulous Piece of Work, 02 May 2008
I really enjoyed this book very much, finding it hard to put down at times. The style of writing was very entertaining, and much different to anything I have read before. I think this may have been the reason why Connolly dealt so well with the obvious problems faced by people in the time of the war.
It was very easy to picture the characters and I became 'attached' to most of them.
Yes, at times, it was a difficult read because of the situations and actions of some of those characters, but nevertheless it is a fabulous piece of work and the best book I have read in a long time.

I liked it but didn't at the same time!, 22 Jul 2007
It's quite hard to review this book because I actually think the premise of the story is sound and interesting because it takes a new take on the war and what life was like for people on the 'Home Front'. My problem with it comes from the characters and what they get up to. I could feel no sympathy for any of them because, despite the problems they had that might make you feel empathy for them, they each and every single one go and spoil it by doing something utterly repellant to someone else - but maybe that was what the author was aiming for.

This book also contains one of the most gruesome and harrowing pieces of text I've ever read. I felt physically sick!

Maybe it's a true representation of some 'ordinary' folk who are corrupted by the situation they find themselves in but I'm not sure. I actually love this author's books but did find this a bit hard to take in places...

What a letdown!!, 11 May 2007
I was looking forward to reading this book very much as it had received very good reviews. However I absolutely hated it. I disliked the style of writing and the storyline was very nasty and gruesome in places. Not for me I'm afraid.

Poor Souls, 12 May 2006
Barry is not a very nice person. He is prone to thumping people whenever he feels like it, is not averse to long, boring and utterly pointless racist rants, and he drives around London whilst he's completely paralytic (at the risk of sounding like a wet blanket, the rampant drink driving in Connolly's novels I do find really annoying). I didn't like Barry, (I kept hoping he'd get pulled over by the cops for one thing), I didn't give a hoot what happened to him, but his relentless (largely self-inflicted) downward spiral kept me turning the pages. The people around him are all caught up in a viper's nest of intertwined relationships, which is pretty par for the course with a Joseph Connolly book. None of them (except young Nicholas, Hilary's son, the only character in the book possessed of a brain) are remotely likeable, but then I guess you don't read a Connolly book because you like the characters!

Why I knocked off a star was because the characterisation in this is pretty poor, I got the feeling that the only identity some characters have is their name! And poor Annie, Barry's longsuffering and pathetically obedient mistress, spends most of the book barely existing at all. Also I didn't understand why this book was set 10 years before it was written. You don't get much sense of the 1980s in it at all, it might just as easily have been set in 1975 or 1995. If this was meant to be a rant at the selfishness of Thatcher's children, well it didn't work because selfish, shallow, greedy people like that are like that whatever era they live in. Contrary to popular belief, it makes no odds who the Prime Minister is!!! What I will give this book the thumbs-up for though is the final revelation about Moira and Gavin, which was so downright disturbing, unexpected and awesomely horrific that I was mightily impressed!

Early Connolly, 20 May 2003
This is the book that got me hooked on Joseph Connolly. Written in a slightly less 'stream of consciousness' style than some of his later work, it is easy to read and the humour is spot on - making you cringe and nod vehemently in recognition. A good introduction to the comic genius of Connolly, for all those who love Kingsley Amis!

Half a good book, 09 Aug 2006
I've got a good yardstick for judging my response to a novel - do I want to hurl it across the room when I finish it? This one I certainly did, not because it was bad but because it was half bad. The first half, or so, concentrating on the 1950s, was really engaging and I enjoyed the device of seeing the story through four different sets of eyes. Some of the details of home life were very poignant and memorable such as the huge importance of swapping tea cards and getting little toys in breakfast cereal. It made it all the more annoying therefore for Mr Connolly to have made me care about these characters to have it all turn out so stupidly. The huge change in the character of one of the people was so abrupt, so late and so underexplained that I can only imagine Mr Connolly was stuck with a growing manuscript and thought "Oh sod it, I'll create a deus ex machina to get the whole thing finished off."

A dark outing from Mr C., 01 Aug 2006
This book is a bit of departure from the norm for Mr C. He normally writes good (well most of them are) slapstick farces, dark satires on modern life, so this one seems more like a nostalgia-fest for him. It concerns one dysfunctional family (and I MEAN dysfunctional!), and the dark secrets that go on behind their respectable, middle-class veneer. I suspect anyone who grew up in the 1950s will enjoy Mr C recalling the sweets, the comics, the sadistic school-teachers, the excitement of the family getting their first television set, etc. Mr C is at his best when looking at the world through the eyes of young Clifford, the little lad. He has a genius ability for getting into the mindset of a child. Also, I liked the way he shows that Arthur, the monstrous, overbearing, bullying head of the family, is the way he is mainly because ... well everybody lets him get away with it. (The grim family dinner scene in the early part of the book should be compulsory reading for all the Jamie Oliver clones, who think civilisation has gone down the pan since families stopped eating round a dinner-table, believe me, this depressing scene will make you grateful for modern life and t.v dinners!). I'm disapointed in the book overall though because there's too much waffle, the plot never really seems to get started, and I simply found it all too depressing. Blimey, I know life's hard, but if we all took Mr C's nihilistic approach few of us would be able to carry on!!! It would be like living in Albert Square! Not a book I can in all honesty say I enjoyed, but it has its moments.

Love may be strange, but not as strange as this book, 24 Feb 2006
Having never read anything by Joseph Connelly before, I cannot compare this to any of his other works. However, I found this book bizarre, in a disappointing way. I found the characters too excessive, the action melodramatic to the point of making the action unbelievable, and hence I lost interest in the story. Disappointing, but ok to read if there is nothing else.

Strange... but true!, 05 Sep 2005
I am a great fan of Joseph Connolly but I was disappointed with his last outing: 'The Works'. However, this novel is right back on form. The stream of conciousness style (typical of, and unique to, Joseph Connolly) allows some fantastic insights into all of the main characters and I laughed out loud (and cringed) on more than several occasions with the characters and their attempts to cope with the world around them; especially in the first section when the children are young. There are some pretty heavy themes tackled in this novel and it's not really for the easily shocked but if you like a novel with excellent characters, a bit of comedy and the usual Connolly dose of the unexpected then I recommend you get yourself a copy!

It Can't Go On , 19 May 2006
This is quite an experimental novel by Connolly, it's almost like a chain-letter of a story, in that the plot gets passed from one character to another, and eventually ends up, full-circle, back with the characters that started it all. The author seems to be attempting to show us how our lives impact on each other, even when we think a person might only be there briefly in passing. It's a brave try, and he largely pulls it off, although the beginning is far too confusing, and all the nonsense with Maria seeming to have about 3 different names (which doesn't help) should have been cut out. It's just rubbish. Maria is the type of female character Connolly seems to have a fascination for, which I don't share. She is thick, selfish, and utterly repellent. Your heart sinks a bit, oh lor here we go again, more vile women and gormless, infatuated men. Fortunately (and by golly, I was delighted with this!) she disappears out of the plot soon after the beginning, and doesn't come in again until the end!!! YES YES YES!!! Connolly is at his very best when he breaks away from the spoilt, pretentious, middle-class twits he normally writes about, and goes off to write about Real People instead. The book really comes alive from the middle onwards, when we meet Reg, the London cabby who is besotted with the girl on the checkout at his local Sainsburys, and Isobel, a downtrodden 50-year-old Building Society worker who has to care for her cantankerous elderly mother. When both Reg and Isobel get a (sadly brief) chance at happiness, the novel suddenly stops being the usual Connolly farce, and becomes something much greater indeed. More of this kind of thing, Mr C, please.

Highly recommended!, 22 Aug 2001
Superb! I've been a devotee of Joseph Connolly's uniquely dark humour for several years now, and I urge those of you not familiar with his acidic, gut-wrenching style to read 'It can't go on', a novel which careers at break-neck speed through the personal lives of its perfectly odious cast, leaving havoc in it's wake.

The general theme is that of infidelity. The women are either sexual predators or embittered housewives; the men are unthinking adulterers or failing professionals. The are moments of sublime horror and embarrassment and some touches of lyrical mastery, albeit couched in the ignoble inner rhetoric of whichever character happens to be holding forth at the time.

There's no plot as such - more a chain of events. A man is seduced by a woman at a party and subsequently thrown out of the house by his wife, an action which sets off a chain of events that shatters the lives of a spinster, a taxi driver, two bank workers and a work-shy American before returning to the rather colourless married couple who started it .

I won't say any more - I don't want to ruin it for you!

In retrospect, it does go on, 02 Feb 2001
This was, at times, a difficult read. The switch from first-person to second-person and then back to first-person again (sometimes in the same paragraph) was rather confusing. The writing style is definitely unique, though I don't quite understand the intent.

The story, however, was brilliant. I find myself thinking back to this book weeks after finishing it. At times I even quote from it. I feel as though I got to know and dislike all of the characters on a personal basis. They were all essentially slime.

But this book also reflect human nature at its worst and goes to show how our actions can result in a chain reaction that eventually may lead back to ourselves.

Does this mean that we are all slime?

I don't think so. But it does leave one wondering if this book is meant to have a moral and if so, then we should be saddened by the dismal view of humankind with which we are left at the end.

This Is It , 15 May 2006
I like Joseph Connolly's dark slapstick farces, but one thing does annoy me - why do most of his characters have to be so utterly detestable? In "This Is It" we have some thoroughly obnoxious characters, most particularly that of Fiona, who is the most repellent female character I've read since Netta in Patrick Hamilton's "Hangover Square". She's vain, spoilt, greedy, shallow, childish, stupid, violent, and sexually mixed-up. And yet I get the impression that Connolly thinks we should like her, that she's a loveable mad thing. She's not. In fact, one of the things that kept me reading to the end of this was the sincere hope that she would DIE!!!! Sadly, she doesn't. All in all though this is classic Connolly fare. I'm never quite sure who is more mixed-up in his books, the men or the women, the men seem more generally hapless. Eric, the central character, is a walking disaster zone. He starts off the book colliding with a London bus, and it doesn't get much better for him from then on. He's forever getting beaten up, falling on his rear (I can see why Rik Mayall is a big fan of Connolly's work!), having to dress up in women's underwear to fool his wife he's a transvestite (don't ask), farts uncontrollably when he has sex, is losing his hair, and is so generally useless that he even needs his poor luckless little friend, Henry Vole, to change the lightbulbs round the house for him! Henry is the only really likeable character in the book, and he ends up unwittingly being a sort of saviour to them. A good read, I just wish Fiona had fallen under the bus right at the beginning instead!

Fantastic, 16 May 2003
Comic novels always say "laugh out loud funny" on the back and they never are. This one is.

This farce is a farce, 03 Jul 2001
Ah, summer reading. Something light and relaxing. Funny's good, not too taxing. Mmm, 'This is it'. Like the bus on the cover, first few pages look promising. Some decent reviews on the back, too...

Whatever Connolly was up to here, I'm afraid to say it was totally lost on me. A parody on farce? Like a typical farce, the characters seem indecent and are unlikeable, occasionally lapsing into stereotypes or plain downright wretchedness. The book seems to be setting itself up for extraordinary moments, only for the situations, particularly towards the end of the novel, to dissolve without any passion. Sorry, Joe, you lost me.

The best thing I can say about 'This is it' is that it inspired me. That's right, inspired me to do my own writing, because if this can get published...

Read it for yourself!, 11 Jul 2003
I picked this book up and could not get into it at all and gave up! I was stuck for something to read one day and thought I would persevere with it!
THANK GOD I DID! What a great book! I think you have to be in a certain carefree frame of mind to fully enjoy it.
I laughed out loud often and got some funny looks on many a bus ride home!
It has now been made into a film which will be a must see!

A great easy read., 08 May 2001
Am only ½ way though this excellent book, and am enjoying it immensely, although a little seedy at times but it wouldn't be so good if it wasn't. It's great so funny, I don't want it to end.

The funniest book I've read for ages, 05 Apr 2001
I thoroughly enjoyed this book on several levels. Clever plotting sets up several hilarious situations which could come straight from an old-fashioned bedroom farce, such as the insanely jealous husband misunderstanding an innocent remark about Extra Strong Mints, and the bungling DIY expert whose suicide note contains a crucial typo... but there are darker things going on too. Several of these characters are really quite disturbed, and although this book will almost certainly make you laugh out loud, it will make you think too. In different hands it could have been a scary psychological thriller - this author plays it for laughs, and the result is a cut above the average frothy summer read!

Very very disappointing, 16 Jan 2001
I bought this book in the local Oxfam shop on the strength of the favourable reviews (from fairly weighty and reputable sources) quoted on the back cover. I was very disappointed. The author dips rapidly in and out of his characters' streams of consciousness, making for a repetitive style which is tiring to read. The characters are stereotyped beyond the requirements of satire and in some cases hard to distinguish from one another. The story is predictable, not really that shocking and the farcical episodes are clumsy. I have to say that the only positive thing about the experience was giving 49p to charity.

Cruel and Sordid, 07 Jan 2001
I was going to give this book two stars because I disliked it so much, but there was one episode in it which did make me laugh so much I had tears in my eyes and it is for that and that alone that it gets an extra star. The episode in question concerns Derek's abortive suicide attempt and was genuinely hilarious. As for the rest I found the characters unlovable and humourless, the sex sordid and utterly without redemption and the style of the book reminiscent of Jackie Collins at her worst. All those short passages segueing to someone else's sordid life and back again. Horrible indeed. Also some really naff puns and jokes really weakened the writing.

A Fabulous Piece of Work, 02 May 2008
I really enjoyed this book very much, finding it hard to put down at times. The style of writing was very entertaining, and much different to anything I have read before. I think this may have been the reason why Connolly dealt so well with the obvious problems faced by people in the time of the war.
It was very easy to picture the characters and I became 'attached' to most of them.
Yes, at times, it was a difficult read because of the situations and actions of some of those characters, but nevertheless it is a fabulous piece of work and the best book I have read in a long time.

I liked it but didn't at the same time!, 22 Jul 2007
It's quite hard to review this book because I actually think the premise of the story is sound and interesting because it takes a new take on the war and what life was like for people on the 'Home Front'. My problem with it comes from the characters and what they get up to. I could feel no sympathy for any of them because, despite the problems they had that might make you feel empathy for them, they each and every single one go and spoil it by doing something utterly repellant to someone else - but maybe that was what the author was aiming for.

This book also contains one of the most gruesome and harrowing pieces of text I've ever read. I felt physically sick!

Maybe it's a true representation of some 'ordinary' folk who are corrupted by the situation they find themselves in but I'm not sure. I actually love this author's books but did find this a bit hard to take in places...

What a letdown!!, 11 May 2007
I was looking forward to reading this book very much as it had received very good reviews. However I absolutely hated it. I disliked the style of writing and the storyline was very nasty and gruesome in places. Not for me I'm afraid.

Poor Souls, 12 May 2006
Barry is not a very nice person. He is prone to thumping people whenever he feels like it, is not averse to long, boring and utterly pointless racist rants, and he drives around London whilst he's completely paralytic (at the risk of sounding like a wet blanket, the rampant drink driving in Connolly's novels I do find really annoying). I didn't like Barry, (I kept hoping he'd get pulled over by the cops for one thing), I didn't give a hoot what happened to him, but his relentless (largely self-inflicted) downward spiral kept me turning the pages. The people around him are all caught up in a viper's nest of intertwined relationships, which is pretty par for the course with a Joseph Connolly book. None of them (except young Nicholas, Hilary's son, the only character in the book possessed of a brain) are remotely likeable, but then I guess you don't read a Connolly book because you like the characters!

Why I knocked off a star was because the characterisation in this is pretty poor, I got the feeling that the only identity some characters have is their name! And poor Annie, Barry's longsuffering and pathetically obedient mistress, spends most of the book barely existing at all. Also I didn't understand why this book was set 10 years before it was written. You don't get much sense of the 1980s in it at all, it might just as easily have been set in 1975 or 1995. If this was meant to be a rant at the selfishness of Thatcher's children, well it didn't work because selfish, shallow, greedy people like that are like that whatever era they live in. Contrary to popular belief, it makes no odds who the Prime Minister is!!! What I will give this book the thumbs-up for though is the final revelation about Moira and Gavin, which was so downright disturbing, unexpected and awesomely horrific that I was mightily impressed!

Early Connolly, 20 May 2003
This is the book that got me hooked on Joseph Connolly. Written in a slightly less 'stream of consciousness' style than some of his later work, it is easy to read and the humour is spot on - making you cringe and nod vehemently in recognition. A good introduction to the comic genius of Connolly, for all those who love Kingsley Amis!

Half a good book, 09 Aug 2006
I've got a good yardstick for judging my response to a novel - do I want to hurl it across the room when I finish it? This one I certainly did, not because it was bad but because it was half bad. The first half, or so, concentrating on the 1950s, was really engaging and I enjoyed the device of seeing the story through four different sets of eyes. Some of the details of home life were very poignant and memorable such as the huge importance of swapping tea cards and getting little toys in breakfast cereal. It made it all the more annoying therefore for Mr Connolly to have made me care about these characters to have it all turn out so stupidly. The huge change in the character of one of the people was so abrupt, so late and so underexplained that I can only imagine Mr Connolly was stuck with a growing manuscript and thought "Oh sod it, I'll create a deus ex machina to get the whole thing finished off."

A dark outing from Mr C., 01 Aug 2006
This book is a bit of departure from the norm for Mr C. He normally writes good (well most of them are) slapstick farces, dark satires on modern life, so this one seems more like a nostalgia-fest for him. It concerns one dysfunctional family (and I MEAN dysfunctional!), and the dark secrets that go on behind their respectable, middle-class veneer. I suspect anyone who grew up in the 1950s will enjoy Mr C recalling the sweets, the comics, the sadistic school-teachers, the excitement of the family getting their first television set, etc. Mr C is at his best when looking at the world through the eyes of young Clifford, the little lad. He has a genius ability for getting into the mindset of a child. Also, I liked the way he shows that Arthur, the monstrous, overbearing, bullying head of the family, is the way he is mainly because ... well everybody lets him get away with it. (The grim family dinner scene in the early part of the book should be compulsory reading for all the Jamie Oliver clones, who think civilisation has gone down the pan since families stopped eating round a dinner-table, believe me, this depressing scene will make you grateful for modern life and t.v dinners!). I'm disapointed in the book overall though because there's too much waffle, the plot never really seems to get started, and I simply found it all too depressing. Blimey, I know life's hard, but if we all took Mr C's nihilistic approach few of us would be able to carry on!!! It would be like living in Albert Square! Not a book I can in all honesty say I enjoyed, but it has its moments.

Love may be strange, but not as strange as this book, 24 Feb 2006
Having never read anything by Joseph Connelly before, I cannot compare this to any of his other works. However, I found this book bizarre, in a disappointing way. I found the characters too excessive, the action melodramatic to the point of making the action unbelievable, and hence I lost interest in the story. Disappointing, but ok to read if there is nothing else.

Strange... but true!, 05 Sep 2005
I am a great fan of Joseph Connolly but I was disappointed with his last outing: 'The Works'. However, this novel is right back on form. The stream of conciousness style (typical of, and unique to, Joseph Connolly) allows some fantastic insights into all of the main characters and I laughed out loud (and cringed) on more than several occasions with the characters and their attempts to cope with the world around them; especially in the first section when the children are young. There are some pretty heavy themes tackled in this novel and it's not really for the easily shocked but if you like a novel with excellent characters, a bit of comedy and the usual Connolly dose of the unexpected then I recommend you get yourself a copy!

It Can't Go On , 19 May 2006
This is quite an experimental novel by Connolly, it's almost like a chain-letter of a story, in that the plot gets passed from one character to another, and eventually ends up, full-circle, back with the characters that started it all. The author seems to be attempting to show us how our lives impact on each other, even when we think a person might only be there briefly in passing. It's a brave try, and he largely pulls it off, although the beginning is far too confusing, and all the nonsense with Maria seeming to have about 3 different names (which doesn't help) should have been cut out. It's just rubbish. Maria is the type of female character Connolly seems to have a fascination for, which I don't share. She is thick, selfish, and utterly repellent. Your heart sinks a bit, oh lor here we go again, more vile women and gormless, infatuated men. Fortunately (and by golly, I was delighted with this!) she disappears out of the plot soon after the beginning, and doesn't come in again until the end!!! YES YES YES!!! Connolly is at his very best when he breaks away from the spoilt, pretentious, middle-class twits he normally writes about, and goes off to write about Real People instead. The book really comes alive from the middle onwards, when we meet Reg, the London cabby who is besotted with the girl on the checkout at his local Sainsburys, and Isobel, a downtrodden 50-year-old Building Society worker who has to care for her cantankerous elderly mother. When both Reg and Isobel get a (sadly brief) chance at happiness, the novel suddenly stops being the usual Connolly farce, and becomes something much greater indeed. More of this kind of thing, Mr C, please.

Highly recommended!, 22 Aug 2001
Superb! I've been a devotee of Joseph Connolly's uniquely dark humour for several years now, and I urge those of you not familiar with his acidic, gut-wrenching style to read 'It can't go on', a novel which careers at break-neck speed through the personal lives of its perfectly odious cast, leaving havoc in it's wake.

The general theme is that of infidelity. The women are either sexual predators or embittered housewives; the men are unthinking adulterers or failing professionals. The are moments of sublime horror and embarrassment and some touches of lyrical mastery, albeit couched in the ignoble inner rhetoric of whichever character happens to be holding forth at the time.

There's no plot as such - more a chain of events. A man is seduced by a woman at a party and subsequently thrown out of the house by his wife, an action which sets off a chain of events that shatters the lives of a spinster, a taxi driver, two bank workers and a work-shy American before returning to the rather colourless married couple who started it .

I won't say any more - I don't want to ruin it for you!

In retrospect, it does go on, 02 Feb 2001
This was, at times, a difficult read. The switch from first-person to second-person and then back to first-person again (sometimes in the same paragraph) was rather confusing. The writing style is definitely unique, though I don't quite understand the intent.

The story, however, was brilliant. I find myself thinking back to this book weeks after finishing it. At times I even quote from it. I feel as though I got to know and dislike all of the characters on a personal basis. They were all essentially slime.

But this book also reflect human nature at its worst and goes to show how our actions can result in a chain reaction that eventually may lead back to ourselves.

Does this mean that we are all slime?

I don't think so. But it does leave one wondering if this book is meant to have a moral and if so, then we should be saddened by the dismal view of humankind with which we are left at the end.

This Is It , 15 May 2006
I like Joseph Connolly's dark slapstick farces, but one thing does annoy me - why do most of his characters have to be so utterly detestable? In "This Is It" we have some thoroughly obnoxious characters, most particularly that of Fiona, who is the most repellent female character I've read since Netta in Patrick Hamilton's "Hangover Square". She's vain, spoilt, greedy, shallow, childish, stupid, violent, and sexually mixed-up. And yet I get the impression that Connolly thinks we should like her, that she's a loveable mad thing. She's not. In fact, one of the things that kept me reading to the end of this was the sincere hope that she would DIE!!!! Sadly, she doesn't. All in all though this is classic Connolly fare. I'm never quite sure who is more mixed-up in his books, the men or the women, the men seem more generally hapless. Eric, the central character, is a walking disaster zone. He starts off the book colliding with a London bus, and it doesn't get much better for him from then on. He's forever getting beaten up, falling on his rear (I can see why Rik Mayall is a big fan of Connolly's work!), having to dress up in women's underwear to fool his wife he's a transvestite (don't ask), farts uncontrollably when he has sex, is losing his hair, and is so generally useless that he even needs his poor luckless little friend, Henry Vole, to change the lightbulbs round the house for him! Henry is the only really likeable character in the book, and he ends up unwittingly being a sort of saviour to them. A good read, I just wish Fiona had fallen under the bus right at the beginning instead!

Fantastic, 16 May 2003
Comic novels always say "laugh out loud funny" on the back and they never are. This one is.

This farce is a farce, 03 Jul 2001
Ah, summer reading. Something light and relaxing. Funny's good, not too taxing. Mmm, 'This is it'. Like the bus on the cover, first few pages look promising. Some decent reviews on the back, too...

Whatever Connolly was up to here, I'm afraid to say it was totally lost on me. A parody on farce? Like a typical farce, the characters seem indecent and are unlikeable, occasionally lapsing into stereotypes or plain downright wretchedness. The book seems to be setting itself up for extraordinary moments, only for the situations, particularly towards the end of the novel, to dissolve without any passion. Sorry, Joe, you lost me.

The best thing I can say about 'This is it' is that it inspired me. That's right, inspired me to do my own writing, because if this can get published...

Read it for yourself!, 11 Jul 2003
I picked this book up and could not get into it at all and gave up! I was stuck for something to read one day and thought I would persevere with it!
THANK GOD I DID! What a great book! I think you have to be in a certain carefree frame of mind to fully enjoy it.
I laughed out loud often and got some funny looks on many a bus ride home!
It has now been made into a film which will be a must see!

A great easy read., 08 May 2001
Am only ½ way though this excellent book, and am enjoying it immensely, although a little seedy at times but it wouldn't be so good if it wasn't. It's great so funny, I don't want it to end.

The funniest book I've read for ages, 05 Apr 2001
I thoroughly enjoyed this book on several levels. Clever plotting sets up several hilarious situations which could come straight from an old-fashioned bedroom farce, such as the insanely jealous husband misunderstanding an innocent remark about Extra Strong Mints, and the bungling DIY expert whose suicide note contains a crucial typo... but there are darker things going on too. Several of these characters are really quite disturbed, and although this book will almost certainly make you laugh out loud, it will make you think too. In different hands it could have been a scary psychological thriller - this author plays it for laughs, and the result is a cut above the average frothy summer read!

Very very disappointing, 16 Jan 2001
I bought this book in the local Oxfam shop on the strength of the favourable reviews (from fairly weighty and reputable sources) quoted on the back cover. I was very disappointed. The author dips rapidly in and out of his characters' streams of consciousness, making for a repetitive style which is tiring to read. The characters are stereotyped beyond the requirements of satire and in some cases hard to distinguish from one another. The story is predictable, not really that shocking and the farcical episodes are clumsy. I have to say that the only positive thing about the experience was giving 49p to charity.

Cruel and Sordid, 07 Jan 2001
I was going to give this book two stars because I disliked it so much, but there was one episode in it which did make me laugh so much I had tears in my eyes and it is for that and that alone that it gets an extra star. The episode in question concerns Derek's abortive suicide attempt and was genuinely hilarious. As for the rest I found the characters unlovable and humourless, the sex sordid and utterly without redemption and the style of the book reminiscent of Jackie Collins at her worst. All those short passages segueing to someone else's sordid life and back again. Horrible indeed. Also some really naff puns and jokes really weakened the writing.

I found 'Winter Breaks' fantastic., 02 Jan 2002
Connolly's writing style is refreshing and his characters are very amusing and an example of middle class Britain at its very worst! There are more twists than a sixties revival night. Brilliant!

A huge disappointment, 25 Sep 2001
I read 'Summer Things' and thoroughly enjoyed it. This follow up was not in the same league, this book spent the first quarter expalining the complicated realationship of each of the main characters forged by the events in the first book. This book never really got going, to be honest, a great pity...

More laughs - and a few tears - with the Summer Things, 05 Apr 2001
Carrying on where "Summer Things" left off, this book slows down the pace a little to show more of the inner workings of the characters' minds. The result is fewer screamingly funny set-pieces and a sense of genuine pathos - my eyes watered for Brian as he contemplated suicide yet again, and even crazy John comes across as a figure in torment and out of control. But a couple of episodes seemed repetitive to me - the situation with unwanted baby Dawn and the affair between Colin and his girlfriend haven't really developed since the first book. I'm torn between thinking the atuthor should stop while he's ahead and wishing for another sequel to tie up loose ends.

Sequel to Summer Things, fans of JC will enjoy this one., 21 Oct 2000
Although 'Summer Things' is a brilliant story of a complex collection of beauties, monsters, weirdos and strangers (and that's the characters!), JC's humour in Winter Breaks holds the whole book together - it'll have you laughing out loud! After a previous abortive attempt at suicide, giving away babies, living in caravans and sleeping with your best friends' husbands and lovers, Winter Breaks will keep you glued til the end - an introduction to new characters from the prequel, Summer Things, turn out to be the new unsuspecting neighbours! - a splendid recommendation for all fans.

The critical fanfare that has greeted Joseph Connolly's books has been sustained and enthusiastic. His brilliant comic flair, exuberant plotting and fluent characterisation has marked out his work as something very unusual in these days of by-the-numbers novels. And The Works is as funny and enjoyable a book as any he has produced.

The "works" of the title is an abandoned printing house by the Thames. It is the legacy that falls to Lucas Cage after the death of his father (an event that makes Lucas more than happy--he is not a man for false sentiment). As Lucas begins to reinvigorate the printing house, he gathers around him some special and unusual talents--mostly eccentric--whom he christens "the family". This group is as widely disparate (and wildly entertaining for the reader) as one could imagine. The most significant recruit is Jamie Dear, who abandons a dead marriage and a dead-end career to work with Lucas. Needless to say, all does not go smoothly, and the intermingling of personalities soon has surprising (and sometimes disastrous) results.

As the above might suggest, there is more than a hint of the self-destructive communities in Iris Murdoch's novels here, but the spirit of PG Wodehouse is also hovering around the edges (Connolly wrote a much acclaimed biography of that writer). But, influences aside, The Works is a very individual piece: much more Joseph Connolly than homage to earlier writers. This is a mordant black farce of the first order. --Barry Forshaw

A Fabulous Piece of Work, 02 May 2008
I really enjoyed this book very much, finding it hard to put down at times. The style of writing was very entertaining, and much different to anything I have read before. I think this may have been the reason why Connolly dealt so well with the obvious problems faced by people in the time of the war.
It was very easy to picture the characters and I became 'attached' to most of them.
Yes, at times, it was a difficult read because of the situations and actions of some of those characters, but nevertheless it is a fabulous piece of work and the best book I have read in a long time.

I liked it but didn't at the same time!, 22 Jul 2007
It's quite hard to review this book because I actually think the premise of the story is sound and interesting because it takes a new take on the war and what life was like for people on the 'Home Front'. My problem with it comes from the characters and what they get up to. I could feel no sympathy for any of them because, despite the problems they had that might make you feel empathy for them, they each and every single one go and spoil it by doing something utterly repellant to someone else - but maybe that was what the author was aiming for.

This book also contains one of the most gruesome and harrowing pieces of text I've ever read. I felt physically sick!

Maybe it's a true representation of some 'ordinary' folk who are corrupted by the situation they find themselves in but I'm not sure. I actually love this author's books but did find this a bit hard to take in places...

What a letdown!!, 11 May 2007
I was looking forward to reading this book very much as it had received very good reviews. However I absolutely hated it. I disliked the style of writing and the storyline was very nasty and gruesome in places. Not for me I'm afraid.

Poor Souls, 12 May 2006
Barry is not a very nice person. He is prone to thumping people whenever he feels like it, is not averse to long, boring and utterly pointless racist rants, and he drives around London whilst he's completely paralytic (at the risk of sounding like a wet blanket, the rampant drink driving in Connolly's novels I do find really annoying). I didn't like Barry, (I kept hoping he'd get pulled over by the cops for one thing), I didn't give a hoot what happened to him, but his relentless (largely self-inflicted) downward spiral kept me turning the pages. The people around him are all caught up in a viper's nest of intertwined relationships, which is pretty par for the course with a Joseph Connolly book. None of them (except young Nicholas, Hilary's son, the only character in the book possessed of a brain) are remotely likeable, but then I guess you don't read a Connolly book because you like the characters!

Why I knocked off a star was because the characterisation in this is pretty poor, I got the feeling that the only identity some characters have is their name! And poor Annie, Barry's longsuffering and pathetically obedient mistress, spends most of the book barely existing at all. Also I didn't understand why this book was set 10 years before it was written. You don't get much sense of the 1980s in it at all, it might just as easily have been set in 1975 or 1995. If this was meant to be a rant at the selfishness of Thatcher's children, well it didn't work because selfish, shallow, greedy people like that are like that whatever era they live in. Contrary to popular belief, it makes no odds who the Prime Minister is!!! What I will give this book the thumbs-up for though is the final revelation about Moira and Gavin, which was so downright disturbing, unexpected and awesomely horrific that I was mightily impressed!

Early Connolly, 20 May 2003
This is the book that got me hooked on Joseph Connolly. Written in a slightly less 'stream of consciousness' style than some of his later work, it is easy to read and the humour is spot on - making you cringe and nod vehemently in recognition. A good introduction to the comic genius of Connolly, for all those who love Kingsley Amis!

Half a good book, 09 Aug 2006
I've got a good yardstick for judging my response to a novel - do I want to hurl it across the room when I finish it? This one I certainly did, not because it was bad but because it was half bad. The first half, or so, concentrating on the 1950s, was really engaging and I enjoyed the device of seeing the story through four different sets of eyes. Some of the details of home life were very poignant and memorable such as the huge importance of swapping tea cards and getting little toys in breakfast cereal. It made it all the more annoying therefore for Mr Connolly to have made me care about these characters to have it all turn out so stupidly. The huge change in the character of one of the people was so abrupt, so late and so underexplained that I can only imagine Mr Connolly was stuck with a growing manuscript and thought "Oh sod it, I'll create a deus ex machina to get the whole thing finished off."

A dark outing from Mr C., 01 Aug 2006
This book is a bit of departure from the norm for Mr C. He normally writes good (well most of them are) slapstick farces, dark satires on modern life, so this one seems more like a nostalgia-fest for him. It concerns one dysfunctional family (and I MEAN dysfunctional!), and the dark secrets that go on behind their respectable, middle-class veneer. I suspect anyone who grew up in the 1950s will enjoy Mr C recalling the sweets, the comics, the sadistic school-teachers, the excitement of the family getting their first television set, etc. Mr C is at his best when looking at the world through the eyes of young Clifford, the little lad. He has a genius ability for getting into the mindset of a child. Also, I liked the way he shows that Arthur, the monstrous, overbearing, bullying head of the family, is the way he is mainly because ... well everybody lets him get away with it. (The grim family dinner scene in the early part of the book should be compulsory reading for all the Jamie Oliver clones, who think civilisation has gone down the pan since families stopped eating round a dinner-table, believe me, this depressing scene will make you grateful for modern life and t.v dinners!). I'm disapointed in the book overall though because there's too much waffle, the plot never really seems to get started, and I simply found it all too depressing. Blimey, I know life's hard, but if we all took Mr C's nihilistic approach few of us would be able to carry on!!! It would be like living in Albert Square! Not a book I can in all honesty say I enjoyed, but it has its moments.

Love may be strange, but not as strange as this book, 24 Feb 2006
Having never read anything by Joseph Connelly before, I cannot compare this to any of his other works. However, I found this book bizarre, in a disappointing way. I found the characters too excessive, the action melodramatic to the point of making the action unbelievable, and hence I lost interest in the story. Disappointing, but ok to read if there is nothing else.

Strange... but true!, 05 Sep 2005
I am a great fan of Joseph Connolly but I was disappointed with his last outing: 'The Works'. However, this novel is right back on form. The stream of conciousness style (typical of, and unique to, Joseph Connolly) allows some fantastic insights into all of the main characters and I laughed out loud (and cringed) on more than several occasions with the characters and their attempts to cope with the world around them; especially in the first section when the children are young. There are some pretty heavy themes tackled in this novel and it's not really for the easily shocked but if you like a novel with excellent characters, a bit of comedy and the usual Connolly dose of the unexpected then I recommend you get yourself a copy!

It Can't Go On , 19 May 2006
This is quite an experimental novel by Connolly, it's almost like a chain-letter of a story, in that the plot gets passed from one character to another, and eventually ends up, full-circle, back with the characters that started it all. The author seems to be attempting to show us how our lives impact on each other, even when we think a person might only be there briefly in passing. It's a brave try, and he largely pulls it off, although the beginning is far too confusing, and all the nonsense with Maria seeming to have about 3 different names (which doesn't help) should have been cut out. It's just rubbish. Maria is the type of female character Connolly seems to have a fascination for, which I don't share. She is thick, selfish, and utterly repellent. Your heart sinks a bit, oh lor here we go again, more vile women and gormless, infatuated men. Fortunately (and by golly, I was delighted with this!) she disappears out of the plot soon after the beginning, and doesn't come in again until the end!!! YES YES YES!!! Connolly is at his very best when he breaks away from the spoilt, pretentious, middle-class twits he normally writes about, and goes off to write about Real People instead. The book really comes alive from the middle onwards, when we meet Reg, the London cabby who is besotted with the girl on the checkout at his local Sainsburys, and Isobel, a downtrodden 50-year-old Building Society worker who has to care for her cantankerous elderly mother. When both Reg and Isobel get a (sadly brief) chance at happiness, the novel suddenly stops being the usual Connolly farce, and becomes something much greater indeed. More of this kind of thing, Mr C, please.

Highly recommended!, 22 Aug 2001
Superb! I've been a devotee of Joseph Connolly's uniquely dark humour for several years now, and I urge those of you not familiar with his acidic, gut-wrenching style to read 'It can't go on', a novel which careers at break-neck speed through the personal lives of its perfectly odious cast, leaving havoc in it's wake.

The general theme is that of infidelity. The women are either sexual predators or embittered housewives; the men are unthinking adulterers or failing professionals. The are moments of sublime horror and embarrassment and some touches of lyrical mastery, albeit couched in the ignoble inner rhetoric of whichever character happens to be holding forth at the time.

There's no plot as such - more a chain of events. A man is seduced by a woman at a party and subsequently thrown out of the house by his wife, an action which sets off a chain of events that shatters the lives of a spinster, a taxi driver, two bank workers and a work-shy American before returning to the rather colourless married couple who started it .

I won't say any more - I don't want to ruin it for you!

In retrospect, it does go on, 02 Feb 2001
This was, at times, a difficult read. The switch from first-person to second-person and then back to first-person again (sometimes in the same paragraph) was rather confusing. The writing style is definitely unique, though I don't quite understand the intent.

The story, however, was brilliant. I find myself thinking back to this book weeks after finishing it. At times I even quote from it. I feel as though I got to know and dislike all of the characters on a personal basis. They were all essentially slime.

But this book also reflect human nature at its worst and goes to show how our actions can result in a chain reaction that eventually may lead back to ourselves.

Does this mean that we are all slime?

I don't think so. But it does leave one wondering if this book is meant to have a moral and if so, then we should be saddened by the dismal view of humankind with which we are left at the end.

This Is It , 15 May 2006
I like Joseph Connolly's dark slapstick farces, but one thing does annoy me - why do most of his characters have to be so utterly detestable? In "This Is It" we have some thoroughly obnoxious characters, most particularly that of Fiona, who is the most repellent female character I've read since Netta in Patrick Hamilton's "Hangover Square". She's vain, spoilt, greedy, shallow, childish, stupid, violent, and sexually mixed-up. And yet I get the impression that Connolly thinks we should like her, that she's a loveable mad thing. She's not. In fact, one of the things that kept me reading to the end of this was the sincere hope that she would DIE!!!! Sadly, she doesn't. All in all though this is classic Connolly fare. I'm never quite sure who is more mixed-up in his books, the men or the women, the men seem more generally hapless. Eric, the central character, is a walking disaster zone. He starts off the book colliding with a London bus, and it doesn't get much better for him from then on. He's forever getting beaten up, falling on his rear (I can see why Rik Mayall is a big fan of Connolly's work!), having to dress up in women's underwear to fool his wife he's a transvestite (don't ask), farts uncontrollably when he has sex, is losing his hair, and is so generally useless that he even needs his poor luckless little friend, Henry Vole, to change the lightbulbs round the house for him! Henry is the only really likeable character in the book, and he ends up unwittingly being a sort of saviour to them. A good read, I just wish Fiona had fallen under the bus right at the beginning instead!

Fantastic, 16 May 2003
Comic novels always say "laugh out loud funny" on the back and they never are. This one is.

This farce is a farce, 03 Jul 2001
Ah, summer reading. Something light and relaxing. Funny's good, not too taxing. Mmm, 'This is it'. Like the bus on the cover, first few pages look promising. Some decent reviews on the back, too...

Whatever Connolly was up to here, I'm afraid to say it was totally lost on me. A parody on farce? Like a typical farce, the characters seem indecent and are unlikeable, occasionally lapsing into stereotypes or plain downright wretchedness. The book seems to be setting itself up for extraordinary moments, only for the situations, particularly towards the end of the novel, to dissolve without any passion. Sorry, Joe, you lost me.

The best thing I can say about 'This is it' is that it inspired me. That's right, inspired me to do my own writing, because if this can get published...

Read it for yourself!, 11 Jul 2003
I picked this book up and could not get into it at all and gave up! I was stuck for something to read one day and thought I would persevere with it!
THANK GOD I DID! What a great book! I think you have to be in a certain carefree frame of mind to fully enjoy it.
I laughed out loud often and got some funny looks on many a bus ride home!
It has now been made into a film which will be a must see!

A great easy read., 08 May 2001
Am only ½ way though this excellent book, and am enjoying it immensely, although a little seedy at times but it wouldn't be so good if it wasn't. It's great so funny, I don't want it to end.

The f