Real

by Stephanie Merritt

Greg is a fading middle-aged actor whose family life has long since become stale; Sally is a struggling young playwright. When they're thrown together to do a West End play, they plunge into a reckless affair that seems to offer an escape into fantasy . . . until Sally makes a shocking discovery that brings them face to face with real life again. A novel of sharp insight, written with warmth and compelling honesty, Real is a brilliant portrait of modern illusions about love.

Genres: Fiction, Contemporary

Paperback

First published January 1, 2005

About the author

(Also writes under the pseudonym S.J. Parris)

Stephanie Merritt (born 1974 in Surrey) to Jim and Rita Merritt is a critic and feature writer for various publications including The Times, the Daily Telegraph, the New Statesman, Zembla and Die Welt. She has also been Deputy Literary Editor and a staff writer at The Observer.

Merritt graduated in English from Queens' College, Cambridge in 1996. Prior to this, she attended Godalming College in Surrey.

She is the author of two novels, Gaveston (Faber & Faber) which won a Betty Trask Award of £4,000 from the Society of Authors in 2002 [2:], and Real (2005), for which she is currently writing a screenplay. She has also written a memoir, The Devil Within, published by Vermilion is 2008, which discusses her experiences living with depression.

Meritt has appeared regularly as a critic and panellist on BBC Radio 4 and BBC7, has been a judge for the BBC and Channel 4 new comedy awards as well as the Perrier Award, and appeared as interviewer and author at various literary festivals, as well as the National Theatre and the English National Opera.

Reviews

[Lisa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Greg is an actor who has made it to a comfortable if boring existence in suburbia, longing for more ‘excitement’, especially in the form of female flesh. Sally is a young and struggling playwright who lives a glorious bohemian life while searching for love. Thrust together, they recklessly begin an affair, heedless to the consequences and warnings. Told over the course of three acts, Stephanie Merritt tracks their relationship and what happens when fantasy must give way to reality.

Real is an intriguing and compelling read, though it’s also infuriating in a number of ways. The tensions between fantasy and reality, between self-delusion and truth, propel this book and are dealt with shrewdly. Merritt tells the story from the perspective of both Sally and Greg but we are never really left in any doubt as to the ways they are deluding themselves about themselves, each other and everyone else.

This is part of what makes the book so infuriating. We are never really in any doubt as what kind of man Greg is – weak, hollow, deeply selfish and self-sabotaging – and Sally’s interest in him becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. When she starts to expect more, to be more, he withdraws – but he still expects her to conform to his desires. To disappear when it’s inconvenient to him. Additionally, his opening chapter is hard to get through. Sally herself is similarly weak – insistent that she’s no-nonsense, rational while clinging to her fantasy of Greg. In some ways, Merritt’s shrewdness backfires: it’s hard to see what Sally sees in him or why she clings so hard to the idea that Greg is going to save the day. But this works towards the climax of the novel, the last meeting between our lovers where Sally seems him all too clearly and Greg remains immured in fantasy – this time of his own goodness.

In some ways, Real feels like a novel before it’s time. It’s easy to imagine it sitting well in amongst the current crop of “sad girl lit” or novels about young women who end up in relationships with older men who may or may not be exploiting them. In other ways, it feels very much a product of the early 2000s. Either way, it’s an intriguing read – though not if you need to like your protagonists.