Lessons for a Sunday Father [Paperback]

Some things just can't be undone. For Scott and Gail, Scott's five-minute indiscretion was the end of their 15-year marriage. Told from the individual perspectives of each member of the family, every chapter is a new voice and the family takes it in turns to tell us its story.

Scott is the husband and father, who feels rather a failure at both, and wonders how he will survive with the binliner of belongings his wife tossed out onto the front lawn; Gail, the wife and mother, is sick of being the responsible parent, and questions whether Scott's affair was just the excuse she was looking for to get out of her marriage; Nat, or Natty, is the 13-year-old son who resents his father for leaving, but likes to distract himself by winding up his little sister; and Rosie is a precocious nine-year-old, who loves her Daddy, the colour mauve, lollies and glittery nail polish.

Lessons for a Sunday Father is a clever, funny and poignant treatment of a sore subject--the break up of the family. It follows on from the success Calman achieved with Love is a Four Letter Word, for which she was short-listed for the "Finest First Novel Featuring Biscuits on the Cover" award. Calman is a writer whose awards even reflect her cynical and quirky sense of humour! --Neena Dutta

‘Funny, traumatic and with the searing sting of truth, this is a moving novel about the realignment of a family’

‘Mature, sensitive and tear-teasing’

It's never too late to grow up...This is the story of: Scott, who finds his belongings outside in a bin bag one day and realises he may have made a big mistake; Gail, who wishes her husband were under guarantee so she could send him back and get a refund; Nat, who discovers that growing up isn't all it's cracked up to be; Rosie, who just wants her Dad back - or if not, then at least some new glitter nail polish; four lives, one story: love, loss and learning to be a grown-up.

IT'S NEVER TOO LATE TO GROW UP...

This is the story of

SCOTT, who finds his belongings outside in a bin bag one day and realises he may have made a Big Mistake

GAIL, who wishes her husband were under guarantee so she could send him back and get a refund

NAT, who discovers that growing up isn't all it's cracked up to be

ROSIE, who just wants her Dad back - or if not, then at least some new glitter nail polish.

Four lives, one story: love, loss and learning to be a grown-up.

Claire Calman
Claire Calman used to have a proper, grown-up job but gave it up when she realised that, if she wanted to be badly paid and have a tough boss, she could become self-employed and at least be allowed to work in her pyjamas. I Like it Like That is Calman's third novel. Her previous two books are Love is a Four Letter Word, a love story for people who wouldn't normally read a love story, and Lessons for a Sunday Father, which explores the break-up of a marriage from the viewpoints of husband, wife, teenage son and nine-year-old daughter. As well as writing novels and short stories, Calman sometimes does stuff on radio or performs her mercifully brief poems live. She lives in London with her husband and the world's tallest known stack of unfiled papers.

Last night, I had precisely nil hours', nil minutes' and nil seconds' sleep. Take a tip from me - if you ever have a major ding-dong with your wife, girlfriend, cohabiting-type person, don't do it after midnight. If you're in the wrong, and believe me, you're bound to be - when was it ever her fault? - skip the excuses, skip the justifications and cut straight to the grovelling. Least that way you might get to kip on the settee. After a night like I just had, you'd be grateful for it. It's always like that on the telly, isn't it? There's a row and then the man, always the man, is dossing down in the front room - notice the woman never ends up on the bloody couch - and if he's lucky she'll chuck a pillow and a blanket at him. Cheers, I love you too.

Obviously, Gail's never paid enough attention or she'd have known that's how it goes. I should have filled her in: 'No, Gail, this is where you banish me to the front room and you stomp upstairs and slam the bedroom door.' Then it'd be cut to corny close-up of our wedding photo falling off the mantelpiece. But by that time I'm already on the wrong side of the front door, wishing I'd got my jacket and my mobile rather than a sodding tea-towel which doesn't look like it's going to be much use in saving me from freezing to death.

Thoughts whirled round my head like water going down a plughole, desperate thoughts and crazy thoughts and weird thoughts one after the other. I would have called my mate Colin, but it was after half-twelve by then and I could just picture his wife Yvonne standing there in her pink dressing-gown, nightie done up to the top button, saying it's no trouble, none at all, she just has to get out the step-ladder and fetch down another quilt from the loft, and offering me a coffee, not to worry she can unload everything from the dishwasher for a clean mug and they usually like to open the fresh pint first thing in the morning but she may as well open it now seeing as it's - goodness - already morning. I always feel I should give myself a good shake like a wet dog before I go in their house; she has this way of looking at you like she wants to put down a bit of plastic sheeting before you get too near her furniture.

I considered checking in at the Holiday Inn, but they know me there after we had that do just before Christmas. Especially after the unfortunate mishap that occurred with the sort-of accidental hurling of mince pies across the Churchill Banqueting Suite. Toyed with the idea of breaking into the MFI showroom on the ring road so's I could kip in one of their room sets. I even thought about ringing up a monastery to tell them I'd had the call from God and would be right round: 'I've spoken to Him Upstairs and He said you're to let me stay, but that I can skip all that praying, silence and head-shaving stuff, OK?'

No way could I stay at my parents'. I'd sooner have slept on a park bench. I'd sooner have slept on a park bench with a bag lady, come to that. Make that two bag ladies and a wino. And a dog with an itch. This is the point where Gail normally says, 'Oh, come on, Scott, stop exaggerating. They're not that bad.' Not that bad? I'd rather suck my way through a bumper size pack of frozen fish fingers than have a meal with those two. I'd rather eat school dinners for the rest of my life, soggy greens and all. I'd rather - oh, forget it. All I'm saying is, if Competitive Moaning was included in the Olympics and they signed up the parents, then Great Britain's gold medal count could be in for a stratospheric rise. My dad's specialist areas are, in no particular order: other drivers, foreigners - which of course includes people whose grandparents came here fifty years ago and, in fact, anyone who lives further away than Folkestone - appliances of all kinds because nothing's made properly any more nowadays - 'they do it deliberate so's you 'ave to keep buying new ones ev'ry free weeks' - the government, the neighbours - oh, yes, and me. Mum's faves are the weather, the Russians (current affairs have kind of passed her by really), Gail's family, people with body piercings - 'I don't know what they can be thinking of a metal stud right through her tongue it's not hygienic is it they must all be perverts they want a good smacking', the ever decreasing size of Mr Kiplid's exceediddly small cakes, the neighbours and - surprise, surprise - me again. In fact, as far as I can see, the only thing that's kept her and him together all these years - that's together as in not actually divorced and as in living under the same roof, not together as in this is the person they love and want to spend time with - is their shared paranoia about the neighbours and their disappointment in me.

Not exactly top of my list when it comes to looking for a cosy bed and a warm welcome on the spur of the moment then. I'd have been better off getting myself arrested so the police would lock me up for the night. I'd have had some sort of bed and maybe got Gail to feel guilty into the bargain, might be worth it. Then I told myself it'd all blow over and I'd only be embarrassing myself and I'd have looked like a total pillock for nothing.