Popular Fiction: After being disappointed by Pauline McLynn's bestselling "comic detective" novels, enough so that I couldn't face her last book, my expectations of her latest were not high.
Which is why more than once while reading this accomplished tale I found myself needing to confirm the identity of the author. This is a gripping, life-enhancing novel in which the author decided to - or was allowed by her publishers to - sever completely Mrs Doyle's apron strings and wander where she clearly needed to go.
Summer in the City is a story about the inhabitants of a place called Farewell Square in the south London suburb of Vauxhall. Abandoned by her husband, who has also rather inconveniently run off with all her money, Lucy is sleeping in her Nissan Micra at the back of the square until she figures out what to do. She's not the only resident of Farewell Square who has some life issues to sort. There's PR guru Jack, who is smarting from his wife's betrayal, Colin the gay finance whizz from Belfast who has commitment issues and plenty of selfish sex, and Ulrika, the diet-addicted lecturer who may be taking her quest for the perfect body a bit too far. The story of Helen - the mysterious bag lady who has it in for Lucy - and Bill - the sad construction boss - is poignantly drawn and provides a melancholic, yet ultimately hopeful note, to what is a suffocating summer.
As a slice of contemporary London life it's perfect - another resident of the square, celebrated artist Famke K, made her name with installations of roadside shrines to those who died in accidents; Tracey Emin eat your heart out - and the writing is by turns moving, insightful and humorous. The book jacket suggests it will appeal to fans of Armistead Maupin's Tales of the City. It might but in an ideal world she wouldn't need such an endorsement to sell this book. McLynn is a writer who deserves to be applauded for her own voice. Readers of popular fiction should be glad she has found it.
Summer in the City, By Pauline McLynn, Headline, 313pp. £10.99
Róisín Ingle is an Irish Times journalist
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