A Stranger in the Earth

One night, bored, I went to see Marcel Theroux read from his debut novel at a local bookstore. I enjoyed the old-fashioned wit of his excerpts so much I ended up buying a copy--something I am not prone to do. It took half a year, but when I finally got around to reading it, it was exactly what I expected: a gentle, witty tale of a country bumpkin's move to London to work for his great-uncle's newspaper. There are a boatload of supporting characters who are all utterly believable, with their own quirks and entertaining agendas. One small criticism is the silliness of character names, which slightly detracts from the overall assuredness of the writing. There is a lot going on, but it all resolves more or less satisfactorily, as is the norm in fish-out-of-water stories of this ilk. The one area that could have used a bit more attention was the history of the hero's grandfather. A promising debut.

I like this book and I LOVE Horace. I certainly hope we'll meet Horace in future novels.Marcel is a very different writer from uncle Alex Theroux whose prose sends you lunging for the dictionary every fifth word, and father Paul who populates his novels with predatory men. Marcel's characters make me wish I knew them. OK there is a slightly predatory MP but you know throughout the story that he'll pay for his deeds like the real British pols.My only criticism would be that he seems to be trying to outdo Dickens with the quirky character names. They are amusing but a little overdone.

I've just finished reading this book and I love it. For a first novel, Theroux is greatly talented. I found the main character someone that I wanted to help out, because of his confusion most of the time. This book is wonderful, I highly recommend it.