Monday 1 June 2015

Love, sex and other foreign policy goals by Jesse Armstrong



“A UN Land Cruiser whined in low gear as it approached and hooted hello. Our jeans, our well-fed haunches and stumbling city walk must have marked us out as non-locals”


I really wanted to like this. The author’s writing credits for tv and the movies include some absolute corkers including the blacker than black Four Lions  and that exemplar of swearing to the max In the Loop. Naturally, when this book was offered up as a for review read on www.netgalley.com I jumped at the chance.

Sadly, it felt a little laboured from the get go. Andrew just smells of pathetic. The author’s trivialisation of a horrific civil war as a background for a thwarted and useless romantic escapade just seems completely off point.Sometimes writers, like a certain hero, possess a ‘particular set of skills’ and I’d say Armstrong’s forte is definitely the screen rather than the hardback. Purely my opinion, I was more than a little disappointed.

That being said, I’ve yet to create something sizeable, so I admire its existence, it not its execution. Not dark enough to be black comedy, aspects of the quotidienne make this more than a little unsatisfying. I love getting lost in a good book… this one made me enjoy reality much more.

Sometimes the quest for a shag does not trump all. Cute cover art though.

2 out of 5 token accents agree.

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