I love Miles Jupp’s comedy and came to this book with very high expectations – thanks to NetGalley and Headline for my copy in exchange for an honest review.
The story is about Clive Hapgood, a History teacher in a small private school. He is having a tough time both at school and in his family life, so a trip to France at half term looks to be the answer to all his problems. However, an incident at school refuses to be forgotten and Clive’s life starts to unravel.
The blurb and suggested a kind of humorous and satirical public school story in the vein of Evelyn Waugh’s ‘Decline and Fall’. It started promisingly in this style – I loved the slightly louche school chaplain and the characterisation of the teachers and enjoyed the humorous set-pieces at the beginning of the novel. As a teacher in exactly the kind of school Jupp is writing about, I felt that there was a certain truth in some of the characters and situations in the novel. Bits of it are really very funny indeed and I settled in to enjoy the comic story.
However, the novel soon shifts to Clive’s family situation – his spiky wife and two daughters. While there were some relatable and funny bits during the trip to France (the hypermarche trips, the paddling pool, the endless bread and cheeseā¦), this is really where the tragedy of the story lies. His marriage is difficult, although I could never really decide whether that was due to Clive’s ineptness (as his wife suggested) or the wife’s quite unpleasant nature. It’s fair to say that I didn’t warm to Helen, the wife, even as I recognised that she was slightly long-suffering, and this felt wrong in the context of the novel.
I can’t even talk about the ending. It wasn’t at all what I expected or hoped for and felt very abrupt.
Overall, this was a mixed bag for me. Lots of it I loved and I did enjoy reading it, hence the 3.5 stars (rounded to 4). However, it felt a bit uneven and ultimately unclear whether it was a comic novel or something much more bleak. The comic bits were really very funny and the school bits engaging, plus the parenting situations relatable – I just wish Jupp had kept his focus on these elements more.
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Header photo by Ivan Aleksic on Unsplash
When endings are abrupt and not what you expect it can be quite disappointing. I’ve been there! But at least the story had some good things as well, so that’s something.
So difficult to review though! Xx