A B and E [Paperback]

When I began reading this novel I knew it was going to be an experimental book, however, I was greatly surprised at just how experimental. The author, Marc Nash, has a vivid imagination, and writes with knowledge and intellect. His prose is full of great British slang words (I'm a Brit, that makes a nice change!), clever wordplay and random sentence structure. Cocktail recipes at the end of each chapter and a one act play clearly display the author's lively and whimsical sense of humour. Unfortunately, this wasn't enough for me and I rather struggled with this story.

Now, whereas I do appreciate that experimental fiction is a genre of its own and one I freely admit to being new to, I do know that while subverting literary conventions - which in many ways is a form of Bizarro fiction I love and am familiar with - is experimental. I also know excessive use of unnecessarily flowery verbiage makes a story complicated and difficult to understand. It slows down the fluidity of the reading, and that can distract and annoy. Don't get me wrong, I think this is a clever piece of writing, but my suspicions are for it to appeal to a wider audience the author may need to calm his extreme experimental style and write in a way the average reader can relate to. But then Nash may not want to attract the average reader but more the person who wants something out of the norm, and if that is the case then this work certainly fits the bill.

Even in experimental literature if there is difficulty differentiating which character is talking as was the case here that only leads to confusion and less enjoyment for the reader. The first person point of view was not an ideal choice for both the protagonist and the antagonist when writing in this "stream of consciousness" style, where there is little dialogue in between these two characters' thoughts.

Now, if the structure of the story is correctly part of the subject matter, then other people who understand it better than me, will probably love Marc Nash's independent voice and his clear break away from convention. This is after all, only one person's opinion and experiential forms are obviously not my forte. However, I am glad to have read Wards A, B & E as it has broadened my horizons and given me a new reading experience. It certainly "should" have fit in very well with my preference for all things "alternative" but sadly, it was too extreme even for me.

I'd been reading and enjoying Marc Nash's flash fiction for a few months, which led me to buy his book, so I knew he was going to play with language but didn't realise how intense a read that would be over a full-length novel or quite how it would make me feel.

Narrated by two female characters, a Gangster's Moll hiding out on Corfu and a nurse back home in the UK, whose connection isn't revealed until the very end, I went through just about every emotion. I felt seduced, soothed, enticed, coaxed but also battered and bruised by the language and wordplay and loved every minute of it. The book is, in effect, two monologues which Marc switches between throughout this experimental novel. Read it if you're interested in discovering the unique way in which Marc Nash bends and stretches our versatile language.

On the run from her psycho gangster husband, Karen Dash (not her true born name) washes up in a sun-soaked Greek holiday resort, where she spends her time hanging out in tourist bars, hotel bedrooms and the like, getting pissed, getting laid and telling (possibly tall) stories. Meanwhile, back in the rainy old UK, a harried NHS nurse cultivates her resentment of her bloody awful patients. But this is more a novel about the telling as it is about the tale: it's about the "voices" of the two protagonists, you might say - the way they "talk" (or should that be write); allusively, discursively, wordily, and the minor digressions, the little anecdotes/factoids/opinions that pepper the novel. This is a fun text, erudite, witty, sometimes playful. The two protagonists are not perhaps entirely convincing: Miss Dash seems a little too wise and cynical (and, let's be honest, too much the literati/intellectual, albeit of the "lumpen" kind) to make an altogether convincing moll. It also has to be said it can be a little difficult to tell the two protagonists apart, their "voices" are very similar, even if their situations are not. If you enjoy "writerly" novels which emphasise the pleasures of the text over narrative and even, to a certain extent, character, then A, B & E could be for you.

From 'I Heard it on the Grapevine'