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This is a book about what happens to a man when his own stupidity splits his family
apart. Tony Parsons is a music journalist-turned-author from England. Man and Boy
is his first novel. Written from entirely the first person, it’s a look at what a man
goes through during a divorce.
The twist to this story isn’t in the way
that his wife leaves him, after he has a one-night stand with a coworker, but in the fact
that he ends up with his son. When his affair is discovered, his wife walks out, taking
their son with her. Then a few weeks later, she brings him back so she can move from
England to Japan to re-start her career. The book’s protagonist, Harry Silver, is forced
to deal with finding a day care for his son, holding onto his job, finding a new job
after getting fired, developing a love life again, caring for a parent dying of cancer…
well, you get the idea. It’s not a life that he was prepared for or had even thought of
before.
Man and Boy could very easily have been a dark and morbid
book. Instead it is one that is full of laughs, easy to relate to (if you have kids and
are single), and full of real characters. Some of the scenes and dialog border on the
cliché but they are easy to look past because of the deft way Parsons handles
them.
This is a great book for a long weekend reader. Read the first
chapter, and you’ll just have to finish the book.
