Dole

by Amanda Hallay

It’s the early 1980s, and Britain is held sway beneath the sinister double threat of Margaret Thatcher and Spandau Ballet. Unemployment’s at a record high, and in the grubby, bedsit-strewn landscape of Dipfield, South London, the down-trodden denizens subsist on Giros, Pot Noodles, and dreams of stardom none of them could ever hope to achieve. Or can they?...The residents of 41, Deerpark Road certainly think so. Nick Murphy (who has been on the dole for the two years since leaving art school) is painting the entire History of Western Art on his bedsit walls, whilst his best friend Paulo (professional gender-bender and lead singer of appalling synth’ band, Fashun) is determined in his ambition to be ‘bigger than Boy George’. Below Paulo lives Doctor Bob, a middle-aged Rastafarian with a PhD (in Dub) and his cat, Poison Floowa, with whom he is obsessed. On the ground floor lives Gayle-from-Downstairs, a Glaswegian slag with a revolting toddler called Jake who pulls down his Pampers and poos on the landing, and above her lives Nancy, a troubled young girl who dreams of starring in the West End musicals of Dipfields only celebrity megalomaniac composer Andre Leigh Weston, whose new show (‘Belgrano! The Falklands Musical’) is about to debut.If this wasn’t troubling enough, Dipfield is about to have a by-election. The strict and handsome Jeremy Higgins is running for the Tories. On a campaign promise of ‘Getting Tough With Job Jilters’, Higgins is leading in the polls, a win promising the end of Deerpark Road; he intends to pull the whole street down and replace it with The Margaret Thatcher Heritage Centre and Food Court. His Labour opponent, the bald and jovial Malcolm Cake, is aided in his bid for victory by obnoxious anarchist Martin Gulliver, editor of ‘Left Hook’ and notorious fan of buggery.Just when it seems that things couldn’t get worse for Nick and Paulo and Doctor Bob, the murdered body of one of the candidates is found buried in their garden.Someone in Dipfield is a killer, and it is down to Martin and Trevor Curry (ace reporter for The Dipfield Advertiser) to find out who.In the spirit of Armistead Maupin, DOLE is an evocative new look at Thatcher’s Britain. From bedsit-land to the West End stage, from the DHSS to Breakfast TV, from arranged Moslem marriages to a surprising intervention from Bob Geldof and Princess Di, DOLE is a roller-coaster romp through ‘The Dodgy Decade’ that uses the comedic form to explore the darker sides of ‘80s England and the ‘Us and Them’ culture of Thatcher.

300 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 2009

Reviews

[David Baker · Rating 5 out of 5]

Like the guy who already reviewed this book said, it's not out until September. My girlfriend is friends with a friend of Amanda Hallay's, and threw a weird chain of lending this well thumbed and slightly battered galley copy of Dole out, it landed on our kitchen table last week. As I grew up in Thatcher's Britain and Maggie's on the cover I picked it up to take glance at. A glance turned into a 16 hour reading marathon as I got sucked into the world that Amanda Hallay has created. To say this book is funny is an understatement. The plot is really clever and twisted, but it's the writer's comic style that really does it. If you want to remember the 1980s, then this is the book for you. And if you want to forget it, this is the book for you, too, as Amanda Hallay focusses on the very worst of that decade.
A really great read. I highly recommend it.

[Larry · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dole is a hoot and a holler and left new holes on the my snout! I was lucky enough to get an advance copy from...wait for it...Colin Farrell! My cousin walks his dog when he's off on a shoot and she pinched it from his coffee table! Amazing, but he wrote on the inside "make a great movie!" I'm not kidding, he really wrote that! Anyway, we returned it after reading, but I think Colin is right. It WOULD make a great movie! Hilarious! Anyways, can't wait till it comes out - you'll love it the best!