Books & Poetry

Drifting through life is Lem’s forte. Deserted by his erstwhile girlfriend Dawn, he is living back at home where he can lie in bed pretending to be a child again, snugly cocooned in the illusion of security which adulthood has so brutally snatched away. Verging on the dysfunctional, he has a laissez-faire approach to his own existence which, combined with his introverted ‘bulblike state’, means that he is singularly lacking in direction and initiative.Somewhat surprisingly, Lem has held down a full-time job as a teacher. Attempting to inculcate a knowledge of mathematics into teenage brains is dispiriting work, and as he journeys to work on the Victoria Line he finds himself wishing he’d trained to be a tree surgeon instead.

Broadbent’s own background in teaching is evinced in her animated descriptions of the trials and tribulations of her profession. Arbitrary use of the apostrophe, wanking beneath the desk and classroom riots are a few of the ills encountered against the racket of industrial hammer drills carrying out refurbishment work courtesy of the government’s Public Private Partnerships.

While Lem’s meandering trajectory can be more than a little trying, Broadbent sets it in the wider context of a society beset with conflicting values. There’s a sense of moral and psychological breakdown in the mindless reality TV culture and routine plastic surgery which Broadbent contrasts so starkly with threats of international terrorism and suicide bombings on the tube.

Effectively capturing the wobbliness of existence, Broadbent’s novel is an entertaining take on the mores of contemporary society, and though Lem is a rather anaemic hero, his eventual epiphany suggests that a positive transformation lies just round the corner.