Amazon.co.uk Review
Nicole Miller--née Nicola Sharp ("by art school I thought it was common; too late I caught on that an English working-class name is a whole lot cooler than a French tart's name, which can never be cool though it can be camp."--is romantically attached to her working- class roots, sexually attached (although reluctantly) to her largely absent, irritating and unfaithful photographer husband, and adores her granny.
So, when her mum calls to say she's putting granny Liza Sharp into a home, Nicole--recovering slowly from a Bolly and cocaine-fuelled girls-night-in-leaps onto the first Bristol-bound train to rescue Liza from this fate worse than death and brings granny to live in her ultra-90s Docklands loft.
It's hard for Liza--who has "a beard, three fine warts from which mustard and cress appear to be sprouting and smells like a dish-washing machine that has been left to bear its steaming bounty for a good three weeks of along hot summer" and who used to help her grandchildren play truant and encourage them to shoplift humbugs for her--to adjust to London life. But, paradoxically, it's easier for her than it is for Nicole, who, having successfully metamorphosed into an arty middle-class hedonist, is feeling almost as comfortable and at-home as Gregor Samsa did after turning into a giant beetle in The Metamorphosis. Almost.
Although the plot is pretty thin, there are some terrific fight scenes, plenty of top-notch sulking and lots of Burchill's characteristically idiosyncratic and surprisingly thought-provoking observations. --Lisa Gee
Review
Burchill's passage from enfant terrible to grande dame is chronicled in her newspaper columns: in one diatribe, she slated a reviewer for assuming that Married Alive was autobiographical. So, for the record, graphic designer Nicole, who lives with her supercool photographer husband Matt in a supercool Docklands apartment in London, is a totally fictional creation. This account of a breakdown in a dysfunctional marriage, triggered by the invasion of Nicole's nightmare grandmother, is actually far more entertaining and improbable than any autobiography could possibly be, and Burchill's ranting style is as effective and acerbic as ever. (Kirkus UK)
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