What We Did on Our Holidays

by Geoff Nicholson

Eric sets out with his family to the Tralee Caravan Park, but what he hopes will be a restful fortnight turns into a nightmare of apocalyptic proportions in this humorous novel. He is shot at by a low flying aircraft, his daughter undergoes a religious experience, and things go from bad to worse.

Genres: Fiction, Humor, Literature

175 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1990

About the author

Geoff Nicholson was a British novelist and nonfiction writer. He was educated at the Universities of Cambridge and Essex.

The main themes and features of his books include leading characters with obsessions, characters with quirky views on life, interweaving storylines and hidden subcultures and societies. His books usually contain a lot of black humour. He has also written three works of nonfiction and some short stories. His novel Bleeding London was shortlisted for the 1997 Whitbread Prize.

Reviews

[Petra X · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you are the sort of person who appreciates unnecessarily graphic sex and excessive violence of the sort that one might experience on a caravan holiday at the English seaside where there frankly isn't anything else to do, then you are going to love this black comedy. It makes you want to laugh in a hurhurhur sort of way and snork your coffee through your nose. Dear dear, middleage is a terrible thing! This is one of the funniest books I've read in my whole life. Chelsea Handler could take a tip or two about having pervy sex with dwarves.

Its a mystery to me that anyone could give this book less than 5-stars. Some people have compared this book to Diary of a Nobody. I think it must be some kind of viral thing because the two books have nothing in common at all. I don't remember reading about oversexed wives, daughters-in-religious-rapture, people with Volkswagon fixations and men faking orgasms in Mr. Pooter's little journal. Mind they both did have peculiar sons whether snotty (Pooter) or psychopathic (Nicholson).

Not recommended for airplane travel as the person in the seat next to you might well get splattered with snork-juice and object to the seat shaking, but what the hell, if you were amused by the person sitting next to you, you wouldn't be reading this book anyway.

Entirely rewritten 31 May 2011 to reflect the fact that I have now read Diary of a Nobody and found it only mildly amusing).

[Frank · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not sure what to think of this one. Eric, who just turned 45, decides he needs to take his wife and two teen-aged children on a holiday to a trailer park which may be their last holiday before the children leave home. Well, the holiday was not quite as expected. Before they even get to the camp, their car is wrecked in an accident. Then whatever could go wrong does go wrong in this very dark comedic satire. His oversexed wife devolves into increasing debauchery, his son turns into a wild person who wants to get back to nature and at one point actually wants to sacrifice Eric in a rite of nature. His daughter has gone totally to God and cannot condone Eric's weaknesses. Eric gets harassed by the local police, abused by other camp people, and is constantly put upon by his wife for sexual performance. Overall, a very bizarre narrative some of which hits the mark and was quite humorous but I wouldn't recommend this to everybody. I read Nicholson's The Food Chain several years ago and remember liking it more than this one. And I have a few of his other books that I need to get to.

From Wikipedia: Nicholson is generally regarded as a satirist in the tradition of Evelyn Waugh, his writing also being compared favorably with that of Kinsgley and Martin Amis, Jonathan Coe, Will Self and Zadie Smith. The main themes and features of his books include leading characters with major obsessions, sexual and otherwise (guitars, Volkswagens, women's feet and shoes), interweaving storylines and hidden subcultures and societies. His books usually contain a lot of black humour. He has also written several works of non-fiction and many short stories. His novel Bleeding London was shortlisted for the 1997 Whitbread Prize.

[Daren · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was an unusual and amusing book. Only quite short, and written in diary form, it tells of Eric - just turned 45, and his family holiday to a trailer park in Skegness. The family consists of "trim and attractive" wife Kathleen, with an outsized libido, son Max, who is going through a 'return to nature' phase, and daughter sally, who has embraced religion.

From issue to issue, crisis to crisis and problem to problem, Eric's holiday is many things, but normal and relaxed are two things it is not. As the events unfold in this dark comedy Eric calmly sets about, taking them in his stride, making the best of the situation, not mentioning many of the problems to his family - to allow them to enjoy their holiday, while carefully summarising them in his diary. Eventually, things become too much, and Eric has to deal with them.

So without spoiling plotlines, it is fair to say there is a lot of comedy, there is a downward spiral of sexual debauchery (involving insatiable Kathleen), and wanton violence. If the over descriptive nature of either of these things are not agreeable to you, perhaps leave this book aside.

This book is unusual - as I mentioned above, a dark comedy, but also absurdest. Eric is written as such a feeble and passive character for most of the book, and other characters are also drawn as extremes. There are some aspects to the book that didn't make sense - the planes which appear every so often to strafe the holiday park and some of the other character motivations.

Overall, a quick and amusing read. 3 stars.

[🐴 🍖]

you know that one looney tunes short where daffy duck gets redrawn w/ his bill erased, hovering over a body of water, as a polka-dotted chimera, etc? well, what if that were directed by ben wheatley?

[Rebecca · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very, very funny in a dark way!

[Matt · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nicholson's imagination runs riot in a laugh out loud classic.

[Agoaye Martin · Rating 1 out of 5]

Abominablement médiocre. J'ai eu un mal fou à aller au bout de cet ouvrage décousu, violent et inutile !

[Theediscerning · Rating 1 out of 5]

If this was on imdb not goodreads it'd be one of those 1970s "at the seaside" very British holiday sitcom-type films, but made by Troma. Very uninteresting and free of reason, poorly written and certainly showing its age.

[Ana Guevara · Rating 3 out of 5]

Empieza muy bien, pero creo que como a mitad de libro se pierde un poco y se vuelve repetitivo. El final un tanto decepcionante, pero es la perfecta lectura de verano sin complicaciones y para soltar alguna carcajada

[Carlo Hublet]

Un des pires romans lus! Un humour basique, facile et totalement vulgaire. Endroit: camping en Gde Bretagne. Et ce roman a été traduit!!!!!!

[Karschtl · Rating 1 out of 5]

Sehr schwarzer Humor (rabenschwarz steht auf dem Klappentext). Bei Eric geht ja noch mehr schief als bei Alf (dem strubbeligen Außerirdischen), und irgendwie wirkt das nach ner Weile nicht nur unrealistisch, sondern auch bescheuert.

[Gilden · Rating 1 out of 5]

Complete and utter rubbish, don't know why I continued to the end!

[Kristel]

Mouais...