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A Model Partner
Tom Stacey has a lot to think about these days. The bees for one. He hasn't seen any but he keeps hearing them, buzzing in the fridge at work, in the overhead lights, in the test equipment in the factory where he has spent the last fifteen years of his working life. They seem to be getting louder and more insistent. Then there is his search for Sarah McCarthy. Sarah was his first love when, as a teenager, he travelled around the country in the back of a horsebox with his grieving grandfather. But perhaps it isn't the bees or the past which is the problem. Perhaps it is his loneliness. Twenty-two dates with Happy Couples dating agency and nothing to show. Relationships are all about the details and there are just not enough boxes to tick on the agency's personal profile form. Armed with a wax model and a list of criteria, Tom sets out on a quest to create a personal profile to find his ideal match. On his journey, he meets people just like him, warm but unable to show it, lonely and unable to remedy it, the lost, the misplaced and the damaged.
290 pages, Kindle Edition
First published February 20, 2014
2 people are currently reading
295 people want to read
About the author
Daniel Seery
2 books4 followersDaniel Seery is a writer from Dublin. His work has appeared in local and national publications including The Stinging Fly and REA Journal and he has worked on a number of public arts commissions. In 2012 he was the resident writer in the Axis Centre, Ballymun. He has also been shortlisted for an RTÉ drama competition, has recently been one of the winners of the Irish Writers’ Centre Novel Fair and he has written and directed a play The One We Left Behind which ran in the Irish Writers’ Centre in May 2012 and in the Helix in August 2012. A Model Partner is his first novel. Dan is an avid blogger and his website can be found on danielseery.com
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July 6, 20153.5 stars, 4 for the end section.
Disclaimer: received a copy from publisher. This does not affect my review.
Daniel Seery has written an offbeat and entertaining story about Tom Stacey, a man somewhere in his thirties living in a bedsit with a dreary job who decides he wants to model the ideal woman he would like to date after several disastrous dates with an agency. Tom also lives with a mental illness, obsessive compulsive disorder (I think the symptoms are clear enough) and has to negotiate his way around a tricky world that is hostile to his tics and fascinations.
Seery is to be applauded for introducing a mentally ill character who has to get by in life and hold down a job that sounds all too drearily realistic. There are few enough characters in Irish fiction who have jobs that ring true, and a lot of financial conveniences effected to make sure they never have to worry about such things, particularly if they lose the balance of their mind. This is a constant bugbear of mine (as irritating as the bees in Tom's head) The fact that Tom manages to do this when he is imbalanced from the start, to me makes him a true hero. People forget that mentally ill walk among us, socialise with us, pay taxes for us - in short do a lot of the stuff ordinary people do at great cost to themselves, never mind that "ordinary people" such as (I put in some initials but Ireland is so unsafe I felt obliged to edit them out again) penalise and resent them for it.
The prose style is also very good. Proofers should have caught one instance of "could of" but I'm willing to allow that could be just an expression. Still, it looks kind of funny in print, to me anyway.
At work, Tom's colleagues are all too accurately drawn, particularly the women with their vacuous and vindictive mindset. Mind you, Tom has some problems relating to women. Early on he follows them down the street and takes photographs of them to get their stats for his ideal model, much to the annoyance of Garda Harry, who questions him and is to return to the narrative later. Also even taking into account his disorder, some of his behaviour follows neither sane nor insane logic and is in danger of being fey for its own sake. I also felt I was bouncing around with a lot of flashbacks and in the early sections kept losing the story. This could be a personal thing, but it meant my engagement suffered in the middle when it all got a bit episodic and lacked dramatic tautness.
What does really work is the reader beholding the insanity of the people Tom comes across, which make his universe look relatively normal. From the rambling of Frank Grundy (who was then referred to as Ted, then Frank again, then Ted. That should have been caught at proofing stage and was an irritation) to the tortured universe of his drunken, adulterous boss (his failure to return the watch being even weirder than Tom's obsession with it, which is really only an amped up version of anyone's natural annoyance at having something sentimental pilfered); the predatory lecherousness of an older woman when Tom was a teenager, which hides a deeper insanity and grief, to Tom's grandfather (that is one weird dude), we see indirectly, and that is Seery's cleverness, how utterly messed up we Irish who stigmatise the "nutcases" truly are and how wrong "we" are to think we are better than them. We also get the chance to see how Tom's being "outside" it all means that he can, every now and then as with Karl's wife Angela, say and do the right thing.
The end brings resolution after events come to a head - and what I really like about it is that there is no attempt to "cure" Tom - instead even the people who dislike him most realise what he has to deal with and are willing to meet him half way. Tom may or may not at some point improve his mental health, but self-acceptance is a start in the right direction. If only this dramatic arc could have been kept tight all the way through the story, I would have been drawn in from the start. But I am interested in Seery and will be looking out for his next book.
Disclaimer: received a copy from publisher. This does not affect my review.
Daniel Seery has written an offbeat and entertaining story about Tom Stacey, a man somewhere in his thirties living in a bedsit with a dreary job who decides he wants to model the ideal woman he would like to date after several disastrous dates with an agency. Tom also lives with a mental illness, obsessive compulsive disorder (I think the symptoms are clear enough) and has to negotiate his way around a tricky world that is hostile to his tics and fascinations.
Seery is to be applauded for introducing a mentally ill character who has to get by in life and hold down a job that sounds all too drearily realistic. There are few enough characters in Irish fiction who have jobs that ring true, and a lot of financial conveniences effected to make sure they never have to worry about such things, particularly if they lose the balance of their mind. This is a constant bugbear of mine (as irritating as the bees in Tom's head) The fact that Tom manages to do this when he is imbalanced from the start, to me makes him a true hero. People forget that mentally ill walk among us, socialise with us, pay taxes for us - in short do a lot of the stuff ordinary people do at great cost to themselves, never mind that "ordinary people" such as (I put in some initials but Ireland is so unsafe I felt obliged to edit them out again) penalise and resent them for it.
The prose style is also very good. Proofers should have caught one instance of "could of" but I'm willing to allow that could be just an expression. Still, it looks kind of funny in print, to me anyway.
At work, Tom's colleagues are all too accurately drawn, particularly the women with their vacuous and vindictive mindset. Mind you, Tom has some problems relating to women. Early on he follows them down the street and takes photographs of them to get their stats for his ideal model, much to the annoyance of Garda Harry, who questions him and is to return to the narrative later. Also even taking into account his disorder, some of his behaviour follows neither sane nor insane logic and is in danger of being fey for its own sake. I also felt I was bouncing around with a lot of flashbacks and in the early sections kept losing the story. This could be a personal thing, but it meant my engagement suffered in the middle when it all got a bit episodic and lacked dramatic tautness.
What does really work is the reader beholding the insanity of the people Tom comes across, which make his universe look relatively normal. From the rambling of Frank Grundy (who was then referred to as Ted, then Frank again, then Ted. That should have been caught at proofing stage and was an irritation) to the tortured universe of his drunken, adulterous boss (his failure to return the watch being even weirder than Tom's obsession with it, which is really only an amped up version of anyone's natural annoyance at having something sentimental pilfered); the predatory lecherousness of an older woman when Tom was a teenager, which hides a deeper insanity and grief, to Tom's grandfather (that is one weird dude), we see indirectly, and that is Seery's cleverness, how utterly messed up we Irish who stigmatise the "nutcases" truly are and how wrong "we" are to think we are better than them. We also get the chance to see how Tom's being "outside" it all means that he can, every now and then as with Karl's wife Angela, say and do the right thing.
The end brings resolution after events come to a head - and what I really like about it is that there is no attempt to "cure" Tom - instead even the people who dislike him most realise what he has to deal with and are willing to meet him half way. Tom may or may not at some point improve his mental health, but self-acceptance is a start in the right direction. If only this dramatic arc could have been kept tight all the way through the story, I would have been drawn in from the start. But I am interested in Seery and will be looking out for his next book.
July 25, 2015
Tom is on the hunt for a girlfriend. Registering with a dating agency seem like the logical place to start, as he doesn't get out much. After a multitude of disastrous 'matches', he realises that he may have to be more specific on his application form, or, even better, make up his own application form. He struggles with the idea of what his ideal mate would look like, so with the help of a waxwork model, he creates a visual aide. This creation takes a lot of effort to perfect, especially when the original waxwork, pilfered from a museum, was a male celebrity!
Tom has a leaning towards obsessive compulsive behaviour and not many people 'get' him. He can recite random facts from text books or documentaries and does not operate the normal 'filters' that apply in social settings. A genuinely innocent, grown man, he lives alone and has a pretty boring life. He wants to change this, but sometimes the simple things in life cause him so much stress that he hears buzzing in his head. His quest for a woman in his life bring hilarious scenarios and yet still tug at the heartstrings...
Tom is a wonderful protagonist. The reader can see how he operates from the get-go and the instinct to cheer him on is overpowering. His daily battle with the grind of mundane life is magnified by his solitary existence and all he wants is to have some like-minded company. The diverse range of characters that the author introduces, throughout the novel, are eclectic and often quiet bonkers. I thought the book contained some of the best characters written in modern fiction, for a long time. A chance encounter with a man selling wigs, for example, had me laughing out loud and the phone call which introduced him, was just brilliantly done.
Tom had a difficult childhood, so it's not hard to see why he finds himself gripped by anxiety at times. The novel flicks between two time frames; his adult self and back to childhood. Some of the childhood parts are grey and jar with the overall theme of the book, but the further into the novel you get, the balance tips to an ideal level.
There are similarities to The Rosie Project by Graham Simpsion, in that they both have main characters who are dogmatically determined to find a mate, but I also found echos of earlier Roddy Doyle books, mainly The Barrytown Trilogy. The Dublin setting, great dialogue and wonderful wit, made this a memorable package. Tom's world may be solitary, but it has so much to teach us. Sometimes quirkiness is essential to maintain our individuality. The world would be a very boring place otherwise. And I would never have read about Tom, or indeed laughed along with some of the other characters, if we were all the same...
Highly Recommended
Tom has a leaning towards obsessive compulsive behaviour and not many people 'get' him. He can recite random facts from text books or documentaries and does not operate the normal 'filters' that apply in social settings. A genuinely innocent, grown man, he lives alone and has a pretty boring life. He wants to change this, but sometimes the simple things in life cause him so much stress that he hears buzzing in his head. His quest for a woman in his life bring hilarious scenarios and yet still tug at the heartstrings...
Tom is a wonderful protagonist. The reader can see how he operates from the get-go and the instinct to cheer him on is overpowering. His daily battle with the grind of mundane life is magnified by his solitary existence and all he wants is to have some like-minded company. The diverse range of characters that the author introduces, throughout the novel, are eclectic and often quiet bonkers. I thought the book contained some of the best characters written in modern fiction, for a long time. A chance encounter with a man selling wigs, for example, had me laughing out loud and the phone call which introduced him, was just brilliantly done.
Tom had a difficult childhood, so it's not hard to see why he finds himself gripped by anxiety at times. The novel flicks between two time frames; his adult self and back to childhood. Some of the childhood parts are grey and jar with the overall theme of the book, but the further into the novel you get, the balance tips to an ideal level.
There are similarities to The Rosie Project by Graham Simpsion, in that they both have main characters who are dogmatically determined to find a mate, but I also found echos of earlier Roddy Doyle books, mainly The Barrytown Trilogy. The Dublin setting, great dialogue and wonderful wit, made this a memorable package. Tom's world may be solitary, but it has so much to teach us. Sometimes quirkiness is essential to maintain our individuality. The world would be a very boring place otherwise. And I would never have read about Tom, or indeed laughed along with some of the other characters, if we were all the same...
Highly Recommended
March 15, 2014
Unlike anything I've read before. I absolutely loved it. Tom Stacey is one of life's everyday heroes. It's full of darkness and light and even some laughs. Everyone should read this!
April 25, 2014
Looks awesome! Cover is really rad
February 15, 2020
This was so enjoyable! Quirky, funny yet riddled with the heartbreaking loneliness of a man misunderstood. I particularly loved the ending. Infact I have never loved an ending quite as much.
May 4, 2015
A Model Partner is compassionate, deeply affecting, and very, very funny. A lot of the humour comes from Tom's straight-faced and utterly bizarre reactions to the world - no, he doesn't see anything odd about moving into his neighbours' apartment when they leave on vacation, or photographing strange women on the street to get an idea of his ideal nose type, or even keeping a wax effigy of William Shatner in a dress in the sitting room. As we learn the reasons for Tom's behaviour, the sadness and loss in the story take hold and make this a truly memorable read.
May 6, 2015
Firstly, I'm surprised this book hasn't received more publicity. It's funny, serious, when it needs to be and sometimes sad with Tom's bizarre character - and I mean that in the best of ways - the wheel that turns the narrative. What seems normal to him is shocking and downright offensive to others and it is in this awkwardness that the writer really shines.
I don't like comparing novels but A Model Partner did remind me of The Rosie Project, although you'll find a lot less "fluff" and a lot more depth here. An excellent read.
I don't like comparing novels but A Model Partner did remind me of The Rosie Project, although you'll find a lot less "fluff" and a lot more depth here. An excellent read.
July 11, 2014
I've had a break in reading recently in part due to a lot of mediocre books being sent to me to review. However, I loved this story from the first page and it has renewed my interest in reading. I really enjoy books about quirky characters who just don't see the world in the same way as everyone else and therefore cannot react with 'normal' parameters.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews