The Courage Consort (Paperback)

However, as with Faber's last two books, Under the Skin and The Hundred and Ninety-Nine Steps, the central vein of the story is in the mind of an unhappy woman, this time Catherine Courage, the 47-year-old wife of the founder of the group. The first page finds herself contemplating suicide by jumping out of the window of their apartment, unsure whether four storeys would be enough to kill her. This gives us the fine closing line to the first paragraph: "If she could only drop from a height of a thousand storeys into soft, spongy ground, maybe her body would even bury itself on impact." There's enough like that to dispel any fear that Catherine might be a whingeing Plathette, and Faber manages to keep her sympathetic and likeable throughout.

If retreading the unhappy female territory means he will never suffer Martin Amis's accusations of misogyny, he would do well to his neglect of male characters. In Under the Skin, the men were - literally and figuratively - leering lumps of meat - and in The Hundred and Ninety-Nine Steps the male was, albeit necessarily, a lantern-jawed hunk with little inner life that we got to see. Here too the men are fairly one-dimensional: from Roger, the unsympathetic husband who constantly asks Catherine if she has "given any more thought to" giving up her anti-depressants, to Julian the pansexual lustbucket; with only Ben, the 20-stone bass, to provide a little light and (ahem) an enormous amount of shade.

The story is simple enough, and like the rest of Faber's books, remains in the head despite its apparently slight construction. As comic novels go, it's not that funny (I laughed once) but it's satisfying and affecting and re-readable and what more, I suppose, could one ask for in 120 pages? Just don't let the fact of a quote on the front cover by Brian Eno put you off.

Roger Courage is the founder of the singing group, named The Courage Consort, although the courage in their name comes from their willingness to tackle contemporary pieces in addition to the traditional standards. His wife, Catherine, is a manic depressive who, in preparation for the trip to Belgium, has forgotten her pills. Ben is an overweight bass singer who lives in his own personal world of silence. Julian is a seemingly bisexual vocalist with a love for Bohemian Rhapsody. And Dagmar, a young German, is the opposite of Catherine in her love for life; she has also, for the trip, brought along her newborn child, Axel.

The book begins with Catherine Courage sitting on the window ledge contemplating whether the four storey drop would be enough to kill her as her husband sit in the next room. As it continues the quintet spend the days practising Partitum Mutante, the avant-garde piece of Italian composer Pino Fugazzi, while the nights provide them with an over exposure to each other that leads to constant arguments about the direction the group should take. Their inability to work with each other leads to an incident that eventually breaks up the group, who are "possibly the seventh most renowned in the world", although there is some hope for the group as evidenced by the optimistic ending.

The prose is light, the vocabulary restrained, and the plot simple. There is humour in this book but it's not laugh out loud funny; the Brits' interpretations of European accents, and the way characters communicate with each other. The characters are nicely done although the woman were better drawn than the males, a common occurrence in Faber's work. Catherine, as the main character, is well conceived - her thoughts were realistic, her dialogue seemed right, and her mania added that extra bit of depth.

Faber's novella is a good read, although, like in The Crimson Petal and the White, he leaves a few things unanswered - the source of a recurring noise from the nearby forest being a prime example - but this does provide scope for interpretation. Maybe we can presume that some parts of the story are delusions of Catherine's. The Courage Consort almost succeeds as a standalone book, but I couldn't help but feel that the characters needed a little more to fully appreciate them. That said, the story is still worth appreciating.