I'll Go to Bed at Noon

This novel paints a terrifying and horrific picture of a catastrophically dysfunctional English family in the late 1970's. The mother is so busy sniffing glue or getting blitzed on alcohol that she sees nothing odd about enabling her drunken son to continue living his useless life off her and her husband. Not only is free rent not enough for this young man, but he steals the pipes from the plumbing system to sell for scrap metal in order to get more money to buy alcohol. He also hits his mother and is banned from every pub in the neighborhood because he is such a disruptive drunk. Down the road lives Uncle Janus Brian who is an end-stage alcoholic. He is the mother's brother and under her care. He is so damaged that he pees and craps all over himself and his house. He lives in dire poverty and is so desperate for alcohol that he distills shoe polish for alcohol! The only one with a semblance of saneness in this family is the father, Aldous. He, too, is driven to drink by the goings-on. This is a novel about addiction and the horror it can bring to anyone or any family in its grasp. I highly recommend this book.

KENT Now, good my lord, lie here and rest awhile. KING LEAR Make no noise, make no noise; draw the curtains: so, so, so. We'll go to supper i' he morning. So, so, so. FOOL And I'll go to bed at noon The title comes from the Fool's last words in King Lear, another story of a troubled family-this book tries to convey the horrors of chronic alcohol abuse. Gerard Woodward writes about alcohol abuse in a family in a quiet British suburb. A passing trait of troubled souls from generation to generation. This book was up for a Booker prize and well it should. This is the second book in a trilogy of the Jones family. I have started backwards, reading the third book first, and now the second. Each novel stands on its own. I read that this could be a story of the author's family. Though steeped in ethanol, the story seems to be as much about the problems that accompanies all our lives, amd the love of parents for their children. Collette and August Jones live in a community just outside of London. They have raised three children, Janus, a remarkable musician who has turned to drink, beer his choice. Julian, a student who tries to avoid all family drama and Juliette, the daughter, the sober one, married to Bill, who does drink. And, then there are the brothers, Janus Brian, who drinks himelf to oblivion every night and Lesley who goes to one of the neighborhood pubs and gets drunk while his friends pour beer down his throat. This family seems more than maladjusted- there is some sort of destruction in every movement. Coleltte, herself an addict of sniffing glue and then drinking barley wine and now onto whiskey. Her husband, August has also started to drink. How is the family to be saved? Can it be saved? This is not all a sad book, there are many instances of frivolity and fun. You will laugh out loud at some of the passages, and through it all you have hope that this family survives. This is a tale about love- mother for children, hope for the future, sadness and above all survival. We can all see someone we love in this book. Can they be saved? Highly Recommended prisrob 02-08-09 August: A Novel A Curious Earth: A Novel

If this cautionary tale about the curse of alcoholism doesn't set our collective alarm bells ringing or shake us up into seeing how the problem drinking phenomenon is tearing up the social fabric of our civilized society, then Woodward would in my humble opinion have wasted his time writing this novel. For I don't find any of the Joneses to be charming or endearing enough to excuse their lunatic behaviour or warrant our sympathy for the plight they find themselves in. Janus and his uncle Janus Brian may be gone cases as far as alcoholics and drunks are concerned but the others are just a pathetic lot, lacking in any redeeming qualities, not to mention moral fibre, backbone or integrity, so you can't help but anticipate the disaster that finally befall them. The father Aldous seems to be in a vague but perpetual state of denial about the state of his family. The mother Colette - an ex-junkie and a recovered alcoholic naïve enough to think that a little drink now and again won't hurt - may be a lovely person at heart (she does after all selflessly care for her dead drunk of a brother) but she's an airhead and downright flaky. The daughter Juliette is to my mind just a cold hearted little witch who's way too eager to get her brother thrown out of the family home so that she and her latest beau can shack up and live off her parents. The other siblings aren't bothered about anything or anyone but themselves. Funny how people think it's all right to as awful as they like to living family members, so long as they don't forget to turn up and say a few kind words at their funerals ! Why bother ? The book works better as a despairing state-of-the-nation commentary on the family as a growingly obsolete institution. If Woodward intended any humour in this rather ludicrous and rambling story, you'll find it in the last third, which I must admit did raise a few laughs. Even then, the effect was mild and fleeting and the humour only became a painful reminder of the absurdity of the Joneses' situation after the humour has dissipated. Sorry, but the sentiment behind Colette's parting gift to Aldous simply rang false. It read like a desperate attempt to make us like the Joneses more. Woodward is a promising writer with an engaging style. It's just that the premise he's chosen isn't commensurate with his talent. He should look elsewhere for inspiration. Not a bad read but unworthy of its Booker nomination.