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Book Reviews Title White
City Blue Fiction-Net
Rating Buy It
From Amazon.co.uk - BUY
NOW! Cover
Story Frankie Blue has
always wanted to be liked. At school the most
important lesson he learned was that in order to
fit in he must sometimes treat the truth with the
respect he thinks it deserves i.e. none at all.
Hence his nickname, Frank the Fib. And now, at
thirty, his nickname has become who he is and what
he does. He’s become one of White City’s
most successful estate agents. His fibs help sell
himself, and help him sell dreams, thin air, empty
space. All his school friends have also realised
their potential in one way or another.
Arch-narcissist Diamond Tony spends his days in
front of mirrors as a hairdresser. Solid,
dependable Nodge has replaced his dreams of foreign
travel with the reality of journeying across London
behind the wheel of his black cab. And Colin is a
computer geek, more interested in downloading than
getting loaded. These are
Frank’s friends, they hold him up,
they’re where he fits. But more and more they
feel like a history that hasn’t yet found its
way into the past. Because Frankie is bored with
Colin and Nodge and Tony, and football and pulling
and pints and E, and pretending that anything else
is a compromise. So he’s decided to carry out
the ‘great betrayal’: he’s going to
get married – to Veronica, a pathologist, who
spends her life looking inside people to see
what’s gone wrong. It’s a talent she has
with the living as well as the dead, and it makes
Frankie nervous. Frankie, as
always, wants to fit in – and coupledom has
become the norm. But from the moment he reveals his
nuptial plans, the whole shape of his life is
thrown into sharp relief – he begins to see it
as a series of choices between his mate and his
mates, security and freedom, truth and
lies. “White City
Blue” is the darkly funny tale of one
man’s odyssey, by way of curry house and pub,
towards a greater understanding of the infinite
mysteries of true love and male
friendship. We
Say Women write about
trying to find Mr Right and men write about how to
hide from these women. They also write about the
importance of finding safety net in the form of
your male friends. “White City Blue” is
totally faithful to this format. Annoyingly,
it’s also very, very good. The characters
aren’t likeable – they’re real. On
the surface, Frankie Blue and his three lifelong
friends are selfish, lying, misogynistic pigs.
Scratch the surface and you might find out that
they are something else entirely or, you might find
out that this is exactly what they are. Tim Lott
opens the characters up through the memories of
Frankie – he takes us back to their school
days and the events in their youth that formed the
men. He writes about childhood with conviction and
honesty – and as we all know, there is nothing
more severe than the cruelty of
children. The only real
female presence in the book is Veronica, who
threatens to upset the status quo by marrying
Frankie. She’s perceptive and intelligent but
unimportant in many ways – this is a book
about men and as that, it is a complete success.
The revelations
at the end are an inevitable consequence of the
past and come as something of a relief. Dramatic
tension builds slowly but the dialogue is sharp and
the prose intelligent so it never feels dull, even
if not much is actually happening. The novel is
plotted strongly, with a clear vision in mind and
this results in a satisfying, thought-provoking
read. Review by: Rachel
Taylor |
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