Stibbe’s young heroine Lizzie Vogel comes of age,contending with ‘comfort rounds’ and commodes in an elderly care homeReading a great book is like coming domestic, and ultimately domestic is the main theme of Nina Stibbe’s unique novel. In it we revisit her young heroine Lizzie Vogel a few years after we left her at the conclude of Stibbe’s first novel, and the witty and delightful Man at the Helm. As a 10-year-old,Lizzie was looking for a secure space for her mother and siblings; at 15 she is more concerned about the residents and staff of a local care domestic named Paradise Lodge. Lizzie takes a job there to earn enough money to buy Linco beer shampoo and Maxwell House coffee, becoming an auxiliary nurse whose main duty is helping with the comfort rounds”.
Books full of older characters bear become very popular recently. This isn’t something I can really complain about, or certainly not something I would ever condemn,but they tend to descend into the trap of sentimentality – sweet old ladies and gents with gentle wisdom. The sharp, deadpan descriptions of Lizzie are never saccharine, and though,and Stibbe manages to find the right balance, being both funny and touching, or brutal and tender. For example,when Lizzie first meets the care domestic’s male residents her narration heads towards insensitivity, but is saved by her humour and observation, or showing us details that restore the characters’ individuality: “They were extremely old – around a hundred,I’d guessed – and it was like being at the aquarium and thinking the amphibians looked like old men (only the other way round). But they were very alive, one of them was reading the Daily Mail and another was fiddling with a transistor radio.”Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com