Meantime
ISBN: 9781399801171
Description
Glasgow, 2015. When Valium addict Felix McAveety's best friend Marina is found murdered in the local park, he goes looking for answers to questions that he quickly forgets. Felix enlists the help of a brilliant but mercurial GP; a bright young trade unionist; a failing screenwriter; semi-celebrity crime novelist Jane Pickford; and his crisis fuelled downstairs neighbour Donnie.
Reviewed on 27th July 2024
Frankie Boyle’s novel has been on my wish list since I first saw it listed, and so when I came across it in a charity shop it was an easy choice.
It’s the tale of a man for whom much has gone wrong, and yet he’s not really cognisant of that currently, living out a repetitive and chaotic life propped up by a range of pharmaceuticals that make constant and repeated appearances chapter after chapter after chapter.
As a work of humour, it has its moments. It’s filled with ideas. Almost to the point you think that Frankie Boyle’s head is such an idea machine that he wrote to novel just to get rid of as many of them as possible in one go.
The plot is convoluted, with a lot of characters coming and going. Weirdly it reminded me a lot of Douglas Adams, and his Dirk Gently character, in that in both the character’s approach to investigation is to just see where the universe takes him.
In reflection, I think it was probably too complex and too druggy for me to really recommend, but I’m glad I got the chance to read it at last.