Art

In this debut novel from the niece of the founder of department store Liberty (let’s get that bit out of the way first), our narrator is the feckless Toby Doubt: wannabe highwayman (in the old-fashioned and romantic rather than the robbing sense) and inattentive fiancé of Imogen Green.

As the book opens, Imogen has apparently had enough and left him fending for himself in their Kentish Town flat. Confused and bereft, he seeks comfort in routine, continuing to get up, get dressed (sort of), ignore the growing pile of fried chicken bones on the front path, and buy toast and Marmite from the local greasy spoon. As the world spins ruthlessly on and Imogen remains absent, Toby becomes convinced that she has run off with an old flame, Gideon Chancelight. So he scopes his rival’s flat and infiltrates his workplace – a chaotic estate agency in Kensington where Toby accidentally gets a job.

What at first feels like a self-consciously wacky take on chick-lit – with the hapless and unlucky-in-love protagonist at the centre of it a man rather than a woman – gradually, and skilfully, turns into a touching portrayal of someone unravelling into derangement over his loss. Friends’ visits and calls go unanswered, and one substance-crazed night he sets upon Imogen’s beloved garden, ironically lush and thriving without her well-meaning interference, and smashes it into pieces.

As the novel progresses, Toby’s reliability as a narrator lessens and the tone darkens significantly. But out
of the murk of his despair and the reader’s unease, a poignant story and snatches of excellent writing rise to the surface. Small but evocative pieces of description, such as the ‘meaty whirr of pigeon wings’ at Farringdon station, stay with you; likewise the tiny vignettes of London life that make the eventual denouement all the more disturbing and affecting.