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Blackheath
Holding a mirror up to contemporary gender politi and exposing the flaws and failures of so-called equal parenting, Blackheath is a moving and sharply comic tale of life-after-children, revealing the awful truth at the heart of modern family love is not enough.
Amelia has two perfect children, a successful husband who loves her, and a big house in London's affluent Blackheath. So why does she wake up one morning with a distaste for her daughter and an unexplained attraction to James, a dad she sees in the playground at drop off?
James has a happy marriage to poet and fellow academic Alice and two children they both adore, sharing the childcare and fitting it around their work commitments. James loves his children intensely, but caring for them during the week makes him feel like a failure, especially when the suited-up bankers and lawyers of Blackheath pass him on the school run, heading for the station and their real lives in the city. When his wife's star begins to rise, James is tempted back into his old career on the comedy circuit, looking for a way to cure his sense that something vital is missing.
As the two couples' lives increasingly overlap, all four characters are thrown into turmoil, and the repercussions threaten to blow both families apart.
Amelia has two perfect children, a successful husband who loves her, and a big house in London's affluent Blackheath. So why does she wake up one morning with a distaste for her daughter and an unexplained attraction to James, a dad she sees in the playground at drop off?
James has a happy marriage to poet and fellow academic Alice and two children they both adore, sharing the childcare and fitting it around their work commitments. James loves his children intensely, but caring for them during the week makes him feel like a failure, especially when the suited-up bankers and lawyers of Blackheath pass him on the school run, heading for the station and their real lives in the city. When his wife's star begins to rise, James is tempted back into his old career on the comedy circuit, looking for a way to cure his sense that something vital is missing.
As the two couples' lives increasingly overlap, all four characters are thrown into turmoil, and the repercussions threaten to blow both families apart.
302 pages, Kindle Edition
Published November 19, 2015
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
February 19, 2016
I've rarely swayed so much while reading a novel. To start with, I really hated it. Or to be precise I really disliked the author. And the main character, who I assumed the author identified with. I thought it was an easy topic, not particularly clever, in fact rather pathetic: look at me so smart, so cool, such a great father and husband, dissing the other parents at our school (who by the way are just as middle class, boring and self centred as you). I grew progressively more annoyed at that man pissing in his own backyard. It reeked of mumsnet.
But then comes the chapter that puts Alice at university and I LOVED it. When he writes about academia he is insightful, engaging, fascinating. And that's where the book gripped me. I started enjoying the complexity of the characters, the pretty nice prose, the human interest plot. Really, really good. So why make it so confusing? Towards the end, it's as if the storyline hasn't been tied up properly. Whether done on purpose or through bad editing, I found it hard to understand who slept with whom and what the eventual relationship between the various protagonists was. If it was done on purpose to give the book a "clever" edge, it failed. And that really annoyed me, because until then I was tremendously enjoying my read. This spoilt it, completely. Disappointing.
But then comes the chapter that puts Alice at university and I LOVED it. When he writes about academia he is insightful, engaging, fascinating. And that's where the book gripped me. I started enjoying the complexity of the characters, the pretty nice prose, the human interest plot. Really, really good. So why make it so confusing? Towards the end, it's as if the storyline hasn't been tied up properly. Whether done on purpose or through bad editing, I found it hard to understand who slept with whom and what the eventual relationship between the various protagonists was. If it was done on purpose to give the book a "clever" edge, it failed. And that really annoyed me, because until then I was tremendously enjoying my read. This spoilt it, completely. Disappointing.
February 10, 2016
It has been my experience that quality literary fiction more consistently expresses the truth about our humanity than even non-fiction manages to do. Adam Baron has done nothing to dispel this notion in his newest novel Blackheath, which holds a mirror to the successful modern day marriage and seems to ask “what if having everything you ever wanted is not what you actually wanted at all?”
James and Alice are right where they want to be. Alice, a poet and an academic, has been shortlisted for a major poetry prize, and is poised for a quick rise at the university where she teaches. James is completing a PhD, and is teaching as well. Most importantly, they have two young children together, and have managed to secure a spot for their oldest child (who has just reached school age) at a prestigious church school. In short, it appears they're on the fast track to a successful marriage and a happy life. This seems to extend to the other parents at the school as well. All are financially successful, many or most with both parents appearing to balance work and childcare fairly between them, claiming that coveted place among life’s winners.
Baron uses a healthy dose of dramatic irony to set his story on its path, the novel’s first pages letting the reader in on the particular motivations of one Amelia, a parent at the school who upon first seeing James lays plans for him of which he (James) is wholly unaware. It is with Amelia’s plans looming that we follow James and Alice through the tedium that makes up marriage and parenting and, well, real life, and it is in the depiction of that real life that Blackheath truly shines. It is there Baron is able to demonstrate the chinks in the armor of the modern day relationship, and especially of marriage. The slow and steady movement away from individuality and toward a common identity where the former self almost seems another person entirely; the seeming loss of agency, surrender of choice, the ceding of control. Alice and James are both artists which beautifully facilitated the exploration of these ideas, making their angsts much easier to see and understand than if Baron had chosen say, an accountant and a dentist to tell his tale.
Adam, we learn, has dabbled in stand up, and is driven to make a return to the stage (unbeknownst to Alice), his marriage and parenting experiencing having honed his act into something with a growing mass appeal. Alice’s poetry draws the attention of Amelia’s husband Richard, a director who prods her to write a play on which she spends an increasing amount of her time and which she wishes to keep completely separate from her husband until it has been completed. These projects serve as a force that slowly, almost imperceptibly, causes the couple to drift, and when the universe, as it is wont to do, acts upon them in ways unexpected, their reactions magnify the subtle changes in their relationship that they've only begun to notice themselves.
Blackheath engenders a great deal of thought on a variety of serious topics and yet manages to be quite funny. Let’s face it, there is a lot comedy ensconced in the seeming banalities of marriage and parenthood, and Baron balances the serious with the humorous in a way that made an enjoyable reading experience out of a novel rife with angst. In the end, This novel succeeds because while its characters are not always likable, they feel almost without exception quite real, giving the novel an authenticity that makes the study of these people not just entertaining but ultimately something meaningful.
Note: I received this book free via NetGalley for the purpose of review.
James and Alice are right where they want to be. Alice, a poet and an academic, has been shortlisted for a major poetry prize, and is poised for a quick rise at the university where she teaches. James is completing a PhD, and is teaching as well. Most importantly, they have two young children together, and have managed to secure a spot for their oldest child (who has just reached school age) at a prestigious church school. In short, it appears they're on the fast track to a successful marriage and a happy life. This seems to extend to the other parents at the school as well. All are financially successful, many or most with both parents appearing to balance work and childcare fairly between them, claiming that coveted place among life’s winners.
Baron uses a healthy dose of dramatic irony to set his story on its path, the novel’s first pages letting the reader in on the particular motivations of one Amelia, a parent at the school who upon first seeing James lays plans for him of which he (James) is wholly unaware. It is with Amelia’s plans looming that we follow James and Alice through the tedium that makes up marriage and parenting and, well, real life, and it is in the depiction of that real life that Blackheath truly shines. It is there Baron is able to demonstrate the chinks in the armor of the modern day relationship, and especially of marriage. The slow and steady movement away from individuality and toward a common identity where the former self almost seems another person entirely; the seeming loss of agency, surrender of choice, the ceding of control. Alice and James are both artists which beautifully facilitated the exploration of these ideas, making their angsts much easier to see and understand than if Baron had chosen say, an accountant and a dentist to tell his tale.
Adam, we learn, has dabbled in stand up, and is driven to make a return to the stage (unbeknownst to Alice), his marriage and parenting experiencing having honed his act into something with a growing mass appeal. Alice’s poetry draws the attention of Amelia’s husband Richard, a director who prods her to write a play on which she spends an increasing amount of her time and which she wishes to keep completely separate from her husband until it has been completed. These projects serve as a force that slowly, almost imperceptibly, causes the couple to drift, and when the universe, as it is wont to do, acts upon them in ways unexpected, their reactions magnify the subtle changes in their relationship that they've only begun to notice themselves.
Blackheath engenders a great deal of thought on a variety of serious topics and yet manages to be quite funny. Let’s face it, there is a lot comedy ensconced in the seeming banalities of marriage and parenthood, and Baron balances the serious with the humorous in a way that made an enjoyable reading experience out of a novel rife with angst. In the end, This novel succeeds because while its characters are not always likable, they feel almost without exception quite real, giving the novel an authenticity that makes the study of these people not just entertaining but ultimately something meaningful.
Note: I received this book free via NetGalley for the purpose of review.
June 16, 2016
Novel set in South LONDON ".. a chilling insight into the lives of others.."
This review first appeared on our blog: http://www.tripfiction.com/novel-set-...
Amelia Leigh has it all: she lives in a huge house in affluent Blackheath, an exciting career in casting, a successful husband who adores her, and two perfect children. But one day she wakes up to the discovery that she positively dislikes her daughter and has an unexplained attraction to James, a dad she has only seen at the school gates. This attraction gradually takes on the characteristics of a full-blown obsession as Amelia schemes and lies her way into James’ life. His life, too, until Amelia’s intervention seems pretty good: he’s happily married to Alice, a poet and academic, has a successful academic career of his own and two young children he adores. As the two couples’ lives become ever more entwined the disastrous outcome looks likely to wreck both families.
The cover blurb describes this book as comic and so it is but it’s the kind of comedy that makes you cringe – rather like James’ own stand-up routine in which he reveals the intimate details of Alice’s sexual preferences. Stylistically it’s not an easy read either – there are too many consecutive truncated sentences. Probably a very accurate portrayal of real life communication but without the non-verbal clues of real life it makes comprehension difficult so the reader has to back track quite a lot.
The blurb also quotes Fay Weldon saying that “this is a book by a man who understands women better than they understand themselves”. Well, no. Not any women I’ve met. Thankfully. Baron is giving the reader a detailed insight into what life is like for the middle class Londoner today but sometimes it feels as though he gives us too much detail. Nothing is left unexposed – from the sordid details of their sex lives to the even more sordid details of their values. For these characters are eminently unpleasant, every one of them. Smug, self-indulgent and selfish, they scrabble and claw their way into the good schools, up the housing ladder and in and out of each other’s beds. James studies the mothers at the toddler group and describes them as “bovine”, “living Henry Moores” with “insides as pappy as their poorly contained exteriors”. Amelia narrowly observes her competition, Alice, and is horrified to see that she is sporting a classic, expensive Jaeger mac until she thinks “ting: charity shop”. Everyone manipulates and exploits everyone else. This is a very bleak view of the middle classes. Baron is undoubtedly more familiar with life in London than those of us living up north, but surely, even in London, people are better than this. The picture he paints of Blackheath and Greenwich emphasises the north/south divide very clearly and makes me, for one, very glad that I’m not there.
All in all, this novel offers a chilling insight into the lives of others. It’s skilfully crafted and I’m glad I persevered through it, but I’m not sorry to leave its characters and world behind and I won’t be visiting Blackheath any time soon.
This review first appeared on our blog: http://www.tripfiction.com/novel-set-...
Amelia Leigh has it all: she lives in a huge house in affluent Blackheath, an exciting career in casting, a successful husband who adores her, and two perfect children. But one day she wakes up to the discovery that she positively dislikes her daughter and has an unexplained attraction to James, a dad she has only seen at the school gates. This attraction gradually takes on the characteristics of a full-blown obsession as Amelia schemes and lies her way into James’ life. His life, too, until Amelia’s intervention seems pretty good: he’s happily married to Alice, a poet and academic, has a successful academic career of his own and two young children he adores. As the two couples’ lives become ever more entwined the disastrous outcome looks likely to wreck both families.
The cover blurb describes this book as comic and so it is but it’s the kind of comedy that makes you cringe – rather like James’ own stand-up routine in which he reveals the intimate details of Alice’s sexual preferences. Stylistically it’s not an easy read either – there are too many consecutive truncated sentences. Probably a very accurate portrayal of real life communication but without the non-verbal clues of real life it makes comprehension difficult so the reader has to back track quite a lot.
The blurb also quotes Fay Weldon saying that “this is a book by a man who understands women better than they understand themselves”. Well, no. Not any women I’ve met. Thankfully. Baron is giving the reader a detailed insight into what life is like for the middle class Londoner today but sometimes it feels as though he gives us too much detail. Nothing is left unexposed – from the sordid details of their sex lives to the even more sordid details of their values. For these characters are eminently unpleasant, every one of them. Smug, self-indulgent and selfish, they scrabble and claw their way into the good schools, up the housing ladder and in and out of each other’s beds. James studies the mothers at the toddler group and describes them as “bovine”, “living Henry Moores” with “insides as pappy as their poorly contained exteriors”. Amelia narrowly observes her competition, Alice, and is horrified to see that she is sporting a classic, expensive Jaeger mac until she thinks “ting: charity shop”. Everyone manipulates and exploits everyone else. This is a very bleak view of the middle classes. Baron is undoubtedly more familiar with life in London than those of us living up north, but surely, even in London, people are better than this. The picture he paints of Blackheath and Greenwich emphasises the north/south divide very clearly and makes me, for one, very glad that I’m not there.
All in all, this novel offers a chilling insight into the lives of others. It’s skilfully crafted and I’m glad I persevered through it, but I’m not sorry to leave its characters and world behind and I won’t be visiting Blackheath any time soon.
February 7, 2018
Difficult to know what to say really as this book left me with mixed emotions. Essentially about the lives of two couples living in Blackheath/Greenwich and the complexities of their lives and daily challenges. It's a good read in that I wanted to find out what happened at the end so that made me continue, not sure the end wasn't a bit of a let down though.
What really bothered me was the feeling of a theme running through the book of the authors dislike of the characters, their lives and the community they live in, it felt like he was casting judgement and sneering at them. Given he lives in the area I'm sure that wasn't the case, but given I also live in the area (on the very street the main character lives on) I did feel he was being a bit mean.
Also there were times when I wasn't sure who was who (especially Queen of Royal Hill) and I've seen other reviewers say that
Overall worth reading, but not one that gives a positive feeling, more of a bit of a bad taste
What really bothered me was the feeling of a theme running through the book of the authors dislike of the characters, their lives and the community they live in, it felt like he was casting judgement and sneering at them. Given he lives in the area I'm sure that wasn't the case, but given I also live in the area (on the very street the main character lives on) I did feel he was being a bit mean.
Also there were times when I wasn't sure who was who (especially Queen of Royal Hill) and I've seen other reviewers say that
Overall worth reading, but not one that gives a positive feeling, more of a bit of a bad taste
June 11, 2017
Brilliant.
March 20, 2016
Received from Goodreads Giveaways.
As if you couldn't tell by the five stars, I loved this book. When I first started reading it, I didn't really think I was going to feel much for the characters - middle-class parents with seemingly middle-class problems, the book follows two families whose lives start to come closer together. It's glimpses into parenthood, with the one couple almost taking on 'equal parenting' roles, though with the male's ability to work from home, there's the clear feeling of the main part of parenthood being forced onto him. All of the characters we see start in pretty unclear places, as they deal with growing old, chances slipping away, and their children growing up. There were points near the beginning when I thought I was going to hate them all, but I soon grew to like each and every character as the novel takes us further and further inside their heads, and the world begins to be seen from their uniquely different POVs, as they struggle to go after their own ambitions while always taking into account partners and children. It's a brilliant book, really funny and yet oddly dark in some places.
As if you couldn't tell by the five stars, I loved this book. When I first started reading it, I didn't really think I was going to feel much for the characters - middle-class parents with seemingly middle-class problems, the book follows two families whose lives start to come closer together. It's glimpses into parenthood, with the one couple almost taking on 'equal parenting' roles, though with the male's ability to work from home, there's the clear feeling of the main part of parenthood being forced onto him. All of the characters we see start in pretty unclear places, as they deal with growing old, chances slipping away, and their children growing up. There were points near the beginning when I thought I was going to hate them all, but I soon grew to like each and every character as the novel takes us further and further inside their heads, and the world begins to be seen from their uniquely different POVs, as they struggle to go after their own ambitions while always taking into account partners and children. It's a brilliant book, really funny and yet oddly dark in some places.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews