Books we like ... and books we're not too fussed about
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Tim Lott
Penguin 1997
Picked this one up in a charity shop as I’d read Lott’s later novel Rumours of a Hurricane and enjoyed it. This was his first book: an exploration of his own struggles with depression and of his mother’s suicide. I struggled with it at first as the modish approach to autobiography adopted, based around family snapshots, inevitably produced a disjointed narrative. In addition, it was difficult to like the young Lott as depicted here: a wide boy child of Thatacher (despite his claims to a vague kind of socialism) out for the main chance. As usual in these situations, I reverted to train spotter mode, looking for errors and anomalies: population of England in 1851 quoted as six million is ten million out; Mama Cass Elliott’s death had nothing to do with drugs; Uptown Top Ranking by Althea (not Anthea) and Donna was released in 1977, so Lott couldn’t have heard it during his bad LSD trip six years earlier - unless it was a really bad trip I suppose. However, later, when Lott details his own years of depression and his mother’s suicide, I found this a much more rewarding read. He explores both his family’s history and the illness with candour and sensitivity, and the picture he creates is compelling. This book helped me to understand this aspect of mental illness better, and, building on my recent reading of Austerity Britain and The Northern Clemency, brought the post-war decades vividly to life. I’m glad I stuck with it.
28th June 2009
http://www.timlott.co.uk/
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