Quicksand Tales

by Keggie Carew

Ever been talked into buying a camel? Or become a burglar by mistake? Or accidentally drugged a friend on a blind date?

Keggie Carew has an unerring instinct for being in the wrong place at the wrong time, of putting her foot in it, and making a hash of things. From the repercussions of a missing purse, to boiling a frog, or the holiday when the last thing you could possibly imagine happens, Keggie has been there. She also has an enviable talent for recycling awfulness and turning embarrassment into gold. In prose that will make you laugh, wince and curl your toes, Keggie Carew shares her most humiliating, awkward, uncomfortable, funny, true, terrible and all-too-relatable moments.

You will be glad none of it happened to you.

Genres: Nonfiction, Biography, Memoir

272 pages, Hardcover

Published January 31, 2019

Reviews

[Claire Fuller · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an odd one. This is a book of short stories of Keggie's real-life misadventures. Keggie's writing is sublime - she never puts a food wrong and when I read her work, I often forget I'm reading (she also wrote the wonderful Dadland). But... but... I'm not sure about the form. The trouble with read life stories is because they're real life they often lack the pleasing shape that fiction or full narrative non-fiction can achieve. If this were memoir or travel (her descriptions of her time in Tunisia and India are brilliant) then I think it would work better. All that said, there are a couple of cracking stories both about travel and scams.

[Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

We probably all have that one friend who if it wasn’t for bad luck, wouldn’t have any luck at all. And we have all had those situations where you are genuinely trying to be helpful and manage to put your foot right in it or say the wrong thing. One embarrassing moment was when we were out for dinner with friends and they happened to mention that they thought there was live music there sometimes. We said the last time we were there, there was this accordion player and were quite glad he wasn’t there tonight. Turn’s out that accordion player was her dad…

Keggie Carew is one of those people who has a natural ability to put her foot in it or more by chance to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. This collection is her recollection of the most cringeworthy and embarrassing moment of her life. There is the story of the time when a purse went missing from her home when someone else was looking after it, a dinner party where she was completely oblivious to that fact she was sitting to a Hollywood film star, thinking it was his brother, Nigel. She learns that she is not cut out to be a waitress, mumbles her way through the Latin gardening terms and fails abysmally at matchmaking and camping in a VW Beetle in California.

These stories that Carew has recounted are always awkward, often funny, sometimes hilarious and occasionally terrifying. It shows the strength of her true character too, as what each story shows is her tenacity to keep going no matter how cringe-worthy or embarrassing they are to her. A nice light-hearted read.

[Kirsty Keddie · Rating 4 out of 5]

A frothy read but sufficiently fun that when I accidentally left the book on the bedside table of a hotel, I made a significant diversion to recover it and finish reading. Each chapter is an essay on an amusing chapter in Keggie’s life. Some are horrifying, some laugh out loud funny and some more run of the mill. Some were all about perspective....Keggie sometimes seeing the problem in things where viewed another way the situation wouldn’t have been a disaster after all. I particularly enjoyed her predisposition to get too involved in the lives of her holiday guides!

[Paul Whitla · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderful book from a brilliant new comic writer, laugh out loud funny in many places but written with a flair and a touch of poignancy that reminds me in many ways of David Sedaris (and that is a very high compliment). Every one of the stories is perfectly crafted, drawing out characters fully (not easy to do in short stories) and engaging the reader in an almost thriller-like manner as we wonder what will happen next. I found the honesty in the writing refreshing, as the author describes familiar feelings and annoyances that we all go through but most writers would be loathe to admit to (being pressured for tips in India, uncomfortable conditions at a festival in England).

My favorite piece is ‘the camel raid’ which combines all of the qualities discussed above in one wonderfully self-effacing work which made me both laugh and cry.

Really one of the best books I have read in quite some time, I would recommend this to anyone. Wonderful to discover this author, I cannot wait to see what she comes up with next.

[Colin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sometimes a book comes to a reader entirely by chance. So it was with Quicksand Tales which I happened upon while looking for another book altogether on a library shelf. The blurb on the back cover appealed instantly and the book has proved a very enjoyable read. In thirteen vignettes relating various personal disasters, humiliations and embarrassments, Keggie Carew shines the light of humour on to the situations most of us experience over the course of our lives, but generally prefer to forget. She is very congenial company and these painfully honest and very funny outtakes from a life are a delightful tonic for dark autumn days.

[Amory · Rating 1 out of 5]

If they were tales told by a drunk late at night in a pub they’d be dull and tedious to endure. In a book in the cold light of day I found them one million seven hundred and sixty two thousand and eight times worse. Kept checking back cover wondering if the esteemed Rachel Joyce was describing the same book...

[Ruth · Rating 4 out of 5]

(12) c2019: This is another author that I think I would really like to have at a dinner party. So many of the stories hit the right note for me and did make me chuckle. What an interesting life - and the husband is the perfect foil. Its hard to pick a favourite but the one about being in the woods in America and the story about the house sitting family stick in my mind!

[Isla Scott · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really didn't think much of this book. The author appears to live quite a priviledged life and the situations she finds herself in aren't ones I felt sorry for her about - I wasn't too concerned what happened and I didn't find it especially funny either. There are one or two mildly amusing moments but otherwise its a pretty boring read really.

[Natasha Adams · Rating 3 out of 5]

Audiobook. A few good tales in here but overall a little disappointing.

[Mancman · Rating 3 out of 5]

I came here straight after Dadland, and perhaps that was a mistake. The writing was still warm and engaging, but the subject matter didn’t absorb me in the same way.

[Annette Heslin · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was wondering on some of these stories if they were scams - especially funding a camel. Other stories were comedic and relatable.

[Steve Pinder-Banthorpe · Rating 1 out of 5]

I found the stories (only the first 4 as I'd had enough by then) to be boring and silly like something you'd read in a woman's magazine (doctor's waiting room).