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Glover's Mistake (Hardcover)

by Nick Laird (Author)
3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (36 customer reviews)
RRP: £14.99
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Product details

  • Hardcover: 256 pages
  • Publisher: Fourth Estate Ltd; First Edition; 1st printing. edition (2 April 2009)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0007197500
  • ISBN-13: 978-0007197507
  • Product Dimensions: 22 x 14 x 3 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (36 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 92,376 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Product Description

Review

Praise for 'Utterly Monkey': '"Utterly Monkey" is the real thing; a novel rich in both achievement and promise, by a writer who can actually write.' Jane Shilling, The Times 'Funny, good-humoured and deftly written.' James Walton, Daily Telegraph 'Fluently written, ebulliently implausible, Nick Laird's fiction debut is an entertaining mix of thriller and comedy of misfortunes.' Independent on Sunday '"Utterly Monkey" is an extraordinarily accomplished novel, by a confident and eloquent voice, filled with humour and insights.' Sunday Times 'Part caper movie, part coming-of-age story, part urban satire, "Monkey" introduces a writer with a wonderfully original and limber voice -- a writer who seems able to jump genres as easily as he shifts narrative gears.' Michiko Kakutani, New York Times 'Exquisitely written and extremely entertaining.' Charlie Lee Potter, Mail on Sunday 'Laird has earned his place on the writers' catwalk. Expect to hear much more from this season's smash hit.' Belfast Telegraph 'Laird paces the story well, and shows his poetry roots with some arresting imagery.This is a debut with humour and a heart.' Marie Claire 'A sharp and funny debut.' Eve


Product Description

From a rising young novelist comes an artful meditation on love and life in contemporary London. When David Pinner introduces his former teacher, the American artist Ruth Marks, to his friend and flatmate James Glover, he unwittingly sets in place a love triangle loaded with tension, guilt and heartbreak. As David plays reluctant witness (and more) to James and Ruth's escalating love affair, he must come to terms with his own blighted emotional life. Set in the London art scene awash with new money and intellectual pretension, in the sleek galleries and posh restaurants of a Britannia resurgent with cultural and economic power, Nick Laird's insightful and drolly satirical novel vividly portrays three people whose world gradually fractures along the fault lines of desire, truth and jealousy. With wit and compassion, Laird explores the very nature of contemporary romance, among damaged souls whose hearts and heads never quite line up long enough for them to achieve true happiness.
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Glover's Mistake
82% buy the item featured on this page:
Glover's Mistake 3.4 out of 5 stars (36)
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One Day 4.5 out of 5 stars (83)
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On Purpose
£9.99
Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi
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Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi 3.4 out of 5 stars (47)
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Customer Reviews

36 Reviews
5 star:
 (5)
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 (13)
3 star:
 (9)
2 star:
 (8)
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 (1)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
3.4 out of 5 stars (36 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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5 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Smart and Knowing, 16 April 2009
By G. J. Oxley "Gaz" (Tyne & Wear, England) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   
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Nick Laird, Mr Zadie Smith no less, won the Betty Trask prize with his first novel - 'Utterly Monkey'. Reading his second novel 'Glover's Mistake' it's easy to see why. The writing is smart, clever and full of intelligent observation and insight, despite the fact that at its core this is a spiteful little tale.

The premise is simple, not to say hackneyed, but Laird manages to weave new patterns from the theme. Basically, David Pinner, in his mid-thirties, is an English teacher in London but comes across an American artist who had previously, and briefly, taught him art at university. She's 47, still gorgeous, he fancies her rotten and sets his sights on her.

Unfortunately for him, she comes to his home, meets his much younger (at 23 years old), much better looking lodger - the eponymous James Glover - and falls for him in a big way. David, not happy, does his best to sabotage the relationship and their forthcoming nuptials.

There's absolutely nothing new here, but it's the quality of the writing that elevates the book above a lot of the work produced by other young novelists.

Definitely a writer to watch: some day he may marry his excellent literary style with a more original and compelling plot.
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3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars A bit like Peep Show, but not as funny, 26 April 2009
By J. E. Mcgraw "jamesmcg" (London) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)      
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The protagonist of this novel, David Pinner, is an insecure thirtysomething with a superiority complex and an obsession with his old art teacher. His flatmate is the easygoing, straightforward and somewhat naive Glover. The two coexist reasonably happily until David's former art teacher re-appears, and enters into a romantic relationship with Glover, at which point David's jealousy starts to spiral out of control.

The characters are vividly realised, each with their own characteristic modes of speech, tics and habits. The convoluted spiral of doom that comprises the plot is entertaining. Unfortunately, it all seems a bit... easy. For instance, large chunks of the novel concern the London art world, an easy target for misanthropic humour if ever there was one. This reaches its apotheosis with the character of Larry, a slimy pretentious art critic possessed of neither redeeming features nor depth of character.

David's online life comes on for a degree of scorn as well, but comes across as more of an attempt to appear trendy by listing social networking websites (which, incidentally backfires- why isn't David on Twitter? Because it's only come to prominence since Laird finished the novel, that's why.)

This superficiality makes it difficult to engage with the characters on any real emotional level. They're socially dysfunctional straw men, whose misadventures are only ever intended to be the source of cheap laughs. Many of these cheap laughs are funny, admittedly, but few of them are true. Glover's Mistake, whilst entertaining, lacks the heart that is the mark of a true comic gem.
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3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Modern Mores - great writing, 16 April 2009
By Withnail67 (UK) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)      
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Nick Laird brings the skill with language of a poet and the sharpness of insight of a journalist to bear on his second novel after Utterly Monkey. The plot is crisper and more elegantly realised, and the novel is a up to the minute satire on the vacuity of modern metropolitan cultural life.

Comparisons will be made with Julian Barnes' 1980s novel Talking it Over, but for my money the humour here is sharper and more powerful. Laird is in a fine tradition of British comic writing, but the quality of his humour is pleasingly dark and free of tweeness!
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

3.0 out of 5 stars Difficult to love
I expected great things from Laird's second novel. I enjoyed the sharp intelligence and humour of his first book, Utterly Monkey and hoped that I would find more of the same,... Read more
Published 2 months ago by B. Yeoh

2.0 out of 5 stars Laird`s Mistake
Nick Laird is undoubtedly a master of the English Language . Unfortunately bombarding the reader with a plethora of English grammar does not necessarily make for a good novel... Read more
Published 2 months ago by Mr Frank Lee Bland

4.0 out of 5 stars "Those were the times when I carried you"
Set in contemporary London this novel is essentially about deceit and betrayal and the sly manipulations of one disaffected man, determined to exact revenge on his flat mate and... Read more
Published 4 months ago by Michael Leonard

4.0 out of 5 stars An excellent read
Laird shows in his second novel how beautifully he can craft prose, while still creating a gripping pager-turner. I look forward to the third novel!
Published 4 months ago by TN

4.0 out of 5 stars Which particular mistake are we talking about?
People are horrid. That's what we learn from Glover's Mistake. Maybe that was his mistake. He trusted people. Read more
Published 4 months ago by SARAH MCCARTNEY

2.0 out of 5 stars Well Written but...
I cannot tell you how glad I am to have finally finished reading this book and to be writing this review...at last. Read more
Published 5 months ago by Roger Rebec

4.0 out of 5 stars Fatal attraction
The latest novel from Nick Laird is presented from the perspective of the main protagonist David. David is a teacher and a `blogger', who seems hell-bent on destroying his... Read more
Published 5 months ago by Barney McGrew

5.0 out of 5 stars Elegantly written
This is my first book by this author and I absolutely love his style of writing. It's poetic, insightful and very clever. Read more
Published 5 months ago by zenadox

3.0 out of 5 stars Style with little substance
This is rather like a beautiful, glossy brochure with arty photographs for Pot Noodles. As though Whistler had accepted the commission to paint the Terry Pratchett book covers, we... Read more
Published 6 months ago by Ray Blake

3.0 out of 5 stars Flecks of brilliance on the wrong canvass
David is a paunchy, failed poet, failed artist and failed novelist in his mid-30s doing a dead-end English-teaching job by day and writing a bitterly negative blog by night. Read more
Published 6 months ago by K. Chase-Rahman

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