Fairness

Chronicle of Modern Twilight #5

by Ferdinand Mount

Fairness is about Helen, the tiny, blonde, serious girl whom the narrator meets when they are both looking after children during a summer vacation in Normandy. Her adventures in search of a morally satisfying life lead her into situations that are neither satisfying nor moral, from the mining boom in Central Africa to the child abuse scandals of the late 1980s. Fairness is the latest novel in Ferdinand's Mount's Chronicle of Modern Twilight which includes The Man Who Rode Ampersand and Of Love and Asthma.

322 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2001

About the author

Ferdinand Mount was born in 1939. For many years he was a columnist at the Spectator and then the Daily Telegraph and The Sunday Times. In between, he was head of the Downing Street Policy Unit and then editor of the Times Literary Supplement. He is now a prize-winning novelist and author of, most recently, the bestselling memoir Cold Cream. He lives in London.

Reviews

[Siobhan Markwell · Rating 1 out of 5]

Honestly. Words fail.

[Paddy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Is tediousity a word? Critics I admire (e.g., Michael Dirda of the Washington Post) loved this book. I am a total fan of the Brit Lit faux autobiographical genre that takes readers across era with a set of characters who include a neurotic narrator, his/her object of unrequited longing, and odious foils with personality tics. I would take C.P. Snow's Strangers and Brothers novel sequence to a desert island. If that's not available, I'll take Anthony Powell's A Dance to the Music of Time. Margaret Drabble's mid-career novels. A.S. Byatt's trilogy Virgin in the Garden, Still Life,and Babel Tower. Even A.N. Wilson's Incline Our Hearts and Bottle in the Smoke. But Fairness does not deserve a spot on the shelf. How many times should an author employ the word "tarmac," for example? I finished it, but it wasn't the promised romp that's "as much fun as pink gin." Of course, I'm allergic to gin, so that should have been a clue.