A disclaimer to start the review with – Lynda Clark is a friend of mine, we used to work together at a branch of a well-known bookselling chain. Aha! You say, you may have some exciting author insights? Well, not really no. My overriding impression of Lynda was how well she wore wide legged trousers, striding forth from the back of the shop all in black, looking splendid, and how jealous I was since my legs are far too short to pull those off successfully.
What I didn’t know about Lynda is how much of her sense of humour appears to be down the toilet! Beyond Kidding has a lot of pooh talk, and all sorts of bad taste jokes. Once I got beyond the initial surprise, this had an appeal and I spent much of the read snorting with laughter.
However, I should start at the beginning. Beyond Kidding is Lynda’s debut novel and comes with a short blurb comparing her to Kurt Vonnegut and Douglas Coupland on the back. No pressure there. I’ve only read one of Coupland’s books and found that not only did it not have toilet humour but it also had a dreadfully disappointing ending so Lynda has already done better on two counts.
Beyond Kidding starts with a great premise. The ‘hero’ – more of an anti-hero, I suppose – Rob works in a porn shop run by his childhood friend Bummer (yep) and one day decides to go for a better job and a better life. At an interview in some soulless corporation he attempts to ingratiate himself by inventing a son, Brodie, and makes such a good impression he is forced to keep up the pretence when he gets the job. In order to get round this, he then lies to say Brodie has been kidnapped. But when the police ring to say they’ve found Brodie, he has to take home a child who looks uncannily like the non-existent boy Rob photoshopped.
The book starts with Rob trying to explain the whole story to a work colleague, and as such, this frames the narrative, with the two of them commenting on each episode as it happened. Aside from the smutty humour, what I liked about the book is that Rob is so unlikeable, and so are practically all the characters. They’re hopeless for the most part, but Lynda carefully layers on their actions and their motivations throughout the book so that by the end you have found their hidden hearts of gold beneath the mess, the pooh and the peculiar family set ups.
I also liked that although the work is classed as literary sci-fi, you don’t have to read it that way. If you’re not a sci-fi person (and on the whole I’m not) you’ve nothing to fear here. It has some moments, especially by the end, but as I said earlier, I felt that the ongoing characterisation was the most satisfying part of the novel for me and as such, the genre is less important. To go back to the comparisons with Vonnegut, this is perhaps where Lynda succeeds the most, and the final chapters land emotional sucker punches with the best of them.
Beyond Kidding is published by Fairlight Books on 31 October, in paperback at £8.99.
PS When you know an author it does lead you to wonder why their partner’s name is in the book as a milk frother. I may never know.
Susan E Barsby 