Wild Abandon
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Review
A brilliantly comic tale of commune life going wrong . . . hilarious . . . very funny (The Times )
Warm, insightful comic writing (Independent on Sunday )
Riotous, hilarious, beautifully judged (Psychologies )
Wild Abandon is an engaging and emotionally stimulating, chuckle-out-loud read (Time Out )
As sublimely enjoyable as Submarine (Metro )
British fiction's Bright Young Thing (GQ )
Warm, insightful comic writing (Independent on Sunday )
Riotous, hilarious, beautifully judged (Psychologies )
Wild Abandon is an engaging and emotionally stimulating, chuckle-out-loud read (Time Out )
As sublimely enjoyable as Submarine (Metro )
British fiction's Bright Young Thing (GQ )
Product Description
Kate and Albert, sister and brother, are not yet the last two human beings on earth, but Albert is hopeful. The secluded communal farm they grew up on is - after twenty years - disintegrating, taking their parents' marriage with it. They both try to escape: Kate, at seventeen, to a suburbia she knows only through fiction and Albert, at eleven, into preparations for the end of the world - which is coming, he is sure.
And then there is Don: father of the family, leader and maker of elaborate speeches. Faced with the prospect of saving his community, his marriage, his son from apocalyptic visions and his daughter from impending men, he sets to work on reunifying the commune by bringing it into the modern age, through self-sufficiency, charisma and a rave with a 10k soundsystem.
The last day on earth is coming. Bring your own booze.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Funny in parts: touching in parts,
By
This review is from: Wild Abandon (Paperback)
In one of Terry Pratchett's books, a member of a clown family runs away to join a band of travelling accountants. Dunthorne's book contains a similar reverse rebellion when sensible Kate flees her boring life in an alternative community to explore what she hopes will be the dark underbelly of suburban life with the family of her boyfriend, Geraint.In reality, the darkness was in the community all along. It is an edifice seemingly built on the vanity of her father, Don, and has some serious structural problems. In flashbacks that feature alongside the current narrative, it becomes clear that the "community" is really just Don and his university friends drifting into adulthood, never quite having parted, with student frictions and rivalries fossilised along the way (including those with their former landlord, Patrick, who joined the group and has been installed in his own accommodation, a geodesic dome which he suspects - rightly - was designed by Don to isolate him. Dunthorne deploys some cruel insights in this book, none more so that when he remarks - in connection with the construction of this dome - that the only difference between something done from love and something done from spite is that the latter will adhere better to a timetable.) Something I particularly enjoyed in this book is Dunthorne's portrayal of his characters, which he succeeds in making at the same time sympathetic and deeply unlikeable, especially Albert, Kate's Bart Simpsonish brother. He is though a Bart with a steely edge. When Kate betrays him by leaving the community, and him, to revise for her A-levels with Geraint he becomes seriously weird, convinced that the world will soon end, and plots revenge by killing her favourite goat and serving it to her (Kate is a vegetarian). Kate is also portrayed well. At the start I felt some sympathy for her - a normal person in a weird setting, perhaps echoing Saffy in "Absolutely Fabulous" - but she also has a ruthless streak, intending to abandon Geraint once she gets to Cambridge and trying (and failing) to seduce his father. Re-reading my last few sentences I'm worried that I may have made this book seem a lot darker than it really is. It is for the most part very funny - for a given value of "funny": few laugh out loud moments but plenty of grins - and fun to read. In the end, everyone survives (though there are a couple of close shaves) but it's clear there will be change (not before time) at the community. Finally, some of the other reviews of this book suggest that the author seeks to shock. I really don't think that's the case. With two possible exceptions, nothing especially "shocking" happens (at least not in the view of this this boring middle aged male reviewer) - especially, perhaps, given the self consciously "alternative" lifestyle of some of the characters. Of the two possible exceptions, one is a potentially violent incident, one of the close shaves I refer to above, which arises very much out of the development of one of the characters. I would describe it as scary rather than shocking. The other is the shower, shared by Kate and her brother at the start. But that, too, arises from solid plotting and character: the Community has limited hot water, it's something they have done since childhood, and Kate (already toying with her rebellion into "normality") wants it to stop. Indeed, it's the way that Dunthorne first introduces this desire on her part. It isn't shocking, and it isn't designed to shock. I may have laboured this last point a bit, but I think that those suggestions are really misleading. This isn't always a "nice" book, but it isn't trying to be "nasty".
6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Wild About It!,
By
This review is from: Wild Abandon (Paperback)
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Programme (What's this?)
I loved Submarine so had high hopes for this, Joe Dunthorne's second novel... and wasn't disappointed in the slightest. Set in a commune in south Wales, the story follows the fortunes of its inhabitants, focussing particularly on seventeen-year-old Kate, her younger brother Albert and their parents, Don and Freya, who are at the commune's nucleus.After a lifetime of communal living, Kate is desperate to escape and yearns for the blandness of her boyfriend Geraint's suburban home. In contrast, Albert is just as desperate that she doesn't leave him and tries increasingly dramatic ways to keep her there. Meanwhile, their father, Don, once the charismatic leader known for his energy and powerful speeches, finds his communicative powers are ebbing away along with his grip on family life. Freya, is questioning herself too. Is the 'community' the best place for her and the children to grow up, after all? With all the main characters actively seeking or resisting change, the community becomes a turbulent place, and it's only a matter of time before something gives... I thoroughly enjoyed this novel. The pathos of Don's inability to communicate with his own family and Kate's attempts to transform herself are both wittily and sympthetically portrayed. There is a dark edge too - with Albert's almost suffocating love for his sister, and Freya's developing feelings of frustration at the 'paradise' she, Don and their university friends created all those years ago (the perfect mirror to her daughter's longing to escape). The story finally comes to a fantastic, eventful climax which is wonderfully orchestrated. This is a very funny, well-written book full of larger-than-life characters set against a fascinating backdrop. It made me laugh, it kept me hooked, and was, overall, a sheer pleasure to read. I can't wait to see what Joe Dunthorne does next.
3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Warm, funny and a pleasure to read,
By
This review is from: Wild Abandon (Paperback)
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Programme (What's this?)
Joe Dunthorne perfectly understands the workings of a teenage mind. With Submarine he created a wonderful set of characters, quirky, sad, life-affirming, and with Wild Abandon he effortlessly repeats the feat. His writing flows so easily that you get the impression that he doesn't even need to work hard to do it.Wild Abandon is set in a crumbing hippie commune in Wales. Kate and Albert are the children of the commune co-founder Don, and both are struggling with growing up in their own way. Albert has become obsessed with the idea that the world is going to end in 2012 and is determined to warn everyone and ensure his own safety. Kate is becoming seduced by the idea of the outside world and all the capitalist trappings that her family have worked so hard to avoid. At the same time their parents marriage is breaking up, Don is falling out with the other commune founders and the amount of people in the building is constantly diminishing to the point where it is hardly a viable social solution any longer. The book builds steadily, playing these tensions off against each other, working towards a massive rave that Don decides to throw in celebration of Kate's A level results. This is an utterly charming book. Sharply observed, frequently laugh out loud funny and in places very poignant.
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