Crazy Paving

by Louise Doughty

A terrorist bombing campaign in London is not the greatest problem for secretaries Annette, Joan and Helly. Their boss is a more immediate danger, and strange accidents keep happening, but as events around them unfold they are forced to be heroines as well.

Genres: Fiction

Paperback

First published January 1, 1995

About the author

Louise Doughty is a novelist, playwright and critic. She is the author of five novels; CRAZY PAVING, DANCE WITH ME, HONEY-DEW, FIRES IN THE DARK and STONE CRADLE, and one work of non-fiction A NOVEL IN A YEAR. She has also written five plays for radio. She has worked widely as a critic and broadcaster in the UK, where she lives, and was a judge for the 2008 Man Booker Prize for fiction.

Reviews

[Leo · Rating 2 out of 5]

Okay so it wasn't terrible but I didn't connect with the story at all, found it hard to concentrate on the story as it really felt like an author first book in where there trying out what works for them, and it didn't work for me. But I might read a newer book by Louise Doughty

[Ann Douglas · Rating 3 out of 5]

This novel suffers from a terrible title -- one of the worst titles ever, in fact. (According to Wikipedia, "Crazy paving is a means of hard-surfacing used outdoors, most frequently in gardens. Paving stones of irregular size and shape are laid in a haphazard manner sometimes with mortar filling the gaps between.") What does this have to do with a novel about a group of office mates whose lives are affected by the London subway bombings? I suppose it's a metaphor, but the fact that the Crazy Paving product is introduced into the novel (for about two paragraphs, presumably to define the term), only adds to the reader's confusion about the title and the metaphor. It simply doesn't work.

The novel itself isn't bad. Actually, it's fairly good for a first novel. It's extremely good until about two-thirds of the way through the novel. Then, the story begins to fall apart. The characters start to behave out of character (never a good thing). And the book doesn't feel like it makes sense from start to finish. Maybe that was the point of the book: that life doesn't make sense; and that random events mess up our lives and our understanding of our lives. I'm not sure.

I would recommend that you read WHATEVER YOU LOVE by the same author instead of CRAZY PAVING. It is written in the same fun and quirky voice, but it's a much more cohesive novel.

[Graham · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thought it was extremely satisfying. Crazy paving is not crazy if it has a pattern. If I had written it myself I would have been laughing and grinning as I wrote down some of the naughter bits, and planning when I could get some more in. It's a lesson in knowing people. Helly's bound for disaster, a deprived uneducated slut and slag. What? No she has courage, maturity, brains and enterprise. And it works. The friends have the same progression. A nice trajectory towards a satisfactory close.

[Donna Irwin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Louise Doughty's debut novel about the interaction of people who work in the same office against a backdrop of IRA bombing in London. Not sure if I liked it or not, but it was very well written, with subtle black humour. The way the characters interacted was also very clever. There was just something about it that didnt convince me!!

[Sasha ★ · Rating 2 out of 5]

Yeesh.

I've liked several of Louise Doughty's books and really enjoyed them - Apple Tree Yard, Whatever You Love, Stone Cradle. I didn't like Platform Seven or Black Water and I guess this is another one.

Even for a debut novel, this feels...unpolished. And badly edited, which isn't Louise Doughty's fault, it's her editor's job to spot all these mistakes, but seriously, so many times characters will address each other by name and not add a comma, like, "The thing is Richard" or character's thoughts aren't consistently italicised or sometimes sentences won't even have full stops. I don't know if this book isn't in print much anymore so that's why it looks so sloppy, but it's really distracting.

But the plot was so fucking slow and meandering, which is a problem I also had with Platform Seven too. Louise Doughty's perfected the "quiet British surbarban tension" since this book, but the story goes nowhere for such a long time. The bombings go from a background event to a very real threat, but it takes like 300 pages to get there. And there really didn't need to be so many POV characters, especially since all of them were unlikeable.

We have:

Helly: A Junior Office in her late teens who is characterised by being a working class stereotype, a gobby young woman who is smart but lacks ambition and figures out her boss is "bent" (which is hilarious since the term 'bent' has drastically changed since 1995. Whenever she called him bent I snickered) and clumsily tries to blackmail him into delaying the demolition of her grandparent's home.

Annette: A secretary in her thirties who is kind of a stuck up bitch who's only personality traits are being vain and disliking Helly. Oh, and she embarks on an affair with her colleague William even though she knows he's married.

Joan: Why was she in this book? She's the oldest of the three protagonists, a fifty-something woman who is belittled by her husband and is the mediator between Annette and Helly, or she would be if the women interacted much on page, but that might have been an interesting dynamic and this book is lacking in those.

Then we have their boss Richard, who initially just seems a bit of a dick but he devolves into a sadistic, misogynistic bastard by the end of the book, including one randomly detailed scene where he abuses his wife's dog which I did not enjoy reading. Then there's William who is a selfish prick who is cheating on his wife with Annette and doesn't once think about the impact on her or their son. Then we also have some POVs from Joanna, Helly's grandmother, Benny, some guy Richard's boss paying to stalk Helly to find her connection to Rosewood Cottage, and even Alison and Alun get a look-in near the end. None of these characters are especially interesting and all their perspectives do is bore me and slow down the book. Occasionally little bits of it feel a little more fleshed-out like Joanna's relationship with Helly and lamenting her bad relationship with her daughter, or there's an occasional moment where the characters actually assert themselves like Annette and Joan rescuing Helly or Joan leaving her shitty husband, but I'm glad this wasn't my first Louise Doughty novel I discovered because I'm honestly surprised this got published. And it's a shame because usually I like her books but this was so not worth it.

Rating: 2.5/5

[Ceecee · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think this might be Louise Doughty’s debut novel, if so it showed all the promise that was to come in books like Apple Tree Yard. I really enjoyed this although at one point I did think there were a lot of characters to get used to but it all came together well. I liked the black humour that made a welcome appearance from time to time. Most of the characters work for Capital Transport Authority including Annette, Joan and the very ballsy Helly. Their boss Richard is a snake, possibly a psychopath and definitely on the take. Much of the book centres around attempts to bring Richard down against a background of IRA bombings in London especially the Underground and stations. I assume this is set in the early 90’s; I vividly remember the bombings but don’t remember quite so many as described here but I may be misremembering, though it’s possible that several atrocities were put together for dramatic purposes. Ultimately, several characters are maimed or killed by a double bombing, a diversionary one sending escapees into the path of a bigger one. A typical PIRA tactic.

Overall, I enjoyed the book. I thought it was well written with believable characters with the background of a dangerous time in our islands history. The title was clever with the analogy of the three female characters who were so different but fitted together to lead to a conclusion. I liked that Helly and Joan seemed to have a brighter future at the end of the book as hopefully would Annette. However, I felt the resolution of corruption at the CTA was a bit unsatisfactory as Richards boss at the end of the book expressed his knowledge of Richards actions but went along with his earlier machinations to suppress the truth. I didn’t entirely buy that but it did not spoil my overall enjoyment.

[Holly · Rating 2 out of 5]

Three secretaries work together in the Capital Transport Authority. Ironically every day involves a struggle to get to work using public transport - rush hour, suspicious packages stopping buses, bombing on the subway. One could literally die getting to work; the movement from one place to another is a dangerous proposition in this first world capital. Drive and you could be involved in a multi-car pile up - 4 dead and 20 injured. Work itself appears pretty hum-drum except the fact that their boss Richard is bent; he's taking bribes from contractors bidding on public projects to ensure contracts are won. Helly, the sassy seventeen-year-old Office Junior exposes him to save the demolition of her grand parents' house. They three are women in a men's world; they are secretaries and are thus at the bottom of the pecking order; they were not considered important.

All the characters are well written, but the book fell a little flat. The characters are on trajectories in the plot that are interrupted by traffic and commuting which can be hilarious ultimately doesn't carry a book.

[Mike Collins · Rating 2 out of 5]

I started reading this, in the hope that it would be another Platform Seven. It isn't.
I suppose that expecting an author's first effort to be a great book is asking a bit much in some cases; some authors burst onto the scene with a blockbuster, whereas others have to work up to it. Louise Doughty us clearly the latter.
The pace of the story us truly pedestrian. Pages and pages of humdrum detail felt like it was leading somewhere, but even potentially dramatic events were told in a very flat way. Things improved slightly, after halfway (but not much) and there is more interest towards the end of the book, but it felt like a flog to get there. Even then, there's no sense of purpose, no real denouement. Maybe that's what the author intended - to emphasise the dull nature of her previous career - but it doesn't make for interesting reading.
Read Platform Seven, avoid this one.

[Achella · Rating 3 out of 5]

The story dragged in parts, the characters were believable and well written. Some descriptions made me laugh out loud.

[Marion Malcolm · Rating 3 out of 5]

Enjoyable read, though not as polished as her later publications.

[Julie Midgley · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very slow start but interesting story.

[Jane · Rating 2 out of 5]

easy reading , was ok I enjoyed it

[Linda Tomase · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is L. Doughty's first book, published in 1995. And it's not a stunning debut. It's decent and awkward, flat and somewhat directionless. However, as I read it, I very clearly saw the beginnings of L. Doughty that readers know today - amazing eye for details, sharp and pertinent humorous / ironic episodes, ups and downs that make the reader hold his/ her breath and race along. L. Doughty is a master of human relationships, even in this first book. I kept reading because of the characters and their individual stories.
Should you want to start reading L. Doughty, do not start with "Crazy Paving", aim for the addictive "Apple Tree Yard" (publ 2013).

[Ian · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is on my list of books I read. I can't remember anything about it - not a good basis for receommendation. I can only sum this book up as unmemorable !

[Mary Snaddon · Rating 2 out of 5]

Nogt her best, but it was her first, so I will let her off.