I always look forward to a new Nina Stibbe novel. I know it's a perfect treat waiting to be read. She always makes me laugh, enough to make me want to be her best friend! Creepy!
In this little gem of a book, Nina lets us into her own world of Christmas, and sets out dos and donts of this festive period. Need advice on a tree? A turkey? The perfect present? Whether to throw a party? Well all this and more can be found within the pages of this hilarious autobiography/short story/advice book!
The only downside - it's too short!! I want more! Thank you Nina for yet again bringing a smile to my face.
Man at the Helm
by Nina Stibbe
At the moment, Nina Stibbe is better known for her first bestselling book Love Nina, a collection of letters written by her to her sister while Nina was a nanny in London. I really loved that book, it was very funny, she has a wicked sense of humour (in the literal and slang way), so I was looking forward to reading this book, her first foray into fiction. Her writing style is unchanged. She has a great way of using brackets in sentences to clear up confusion over meanings, and I have to smile every time she does it. It took me a couple of chapters to settle into the story, I seemed to be waiting for something big to happen, (but I do spend 90% of my time reading Young Adult/9-12 fiction, where you're wham bang straight into the adventure), but suddenly I couldn't put it down.
The story is recounted by 9-yr-old Lizzie. Her parents divorce after her father falls in love with someone else, and she (along with her older sister) decide to write a list of all the men they deem suitable to become the next 'man at the helm'. They then forge letters from their mother to these men, asking them to pop over for a drink, and then they wait to see what happens. What's funny is that the girls just want them to be 'intimate' enough times to have to get married. Most of these encounters don't end too well, but you find yourself laughing about it rather than thinking 'oh the poor woman/the poor children'. Of course the one man the mother falls for is not the best of characters and the children are aghast at what they've let themselves and their mother in for.
Just as your thinking 'oh this is hilarious, what on earth is going to happen to the poor family next', something either heartfelt or heartwrenchingly sad happens and you have to have a good old blubber and a moment away from the book to compose yourself and then get right back into it. (Well I did anyway, ask my daughter - she thoughtfully left the room when she saw my eyes filling up and my nose turning red, saying "I'll just leave you on your own for a bit").
Nina said in one interview last year that the book is semi-autobiographical ("it's about my mother's unorthodox style of parenting"). The mother in the story survives mostly on pills and drink, swears like a trooper, and basically just lets her children run wild, but is a natural beauty and makes all men she meets stop dead in their tracks.
I loved the book, loved all the characters and love Nina's style of writing.
If you like this, I also recommend the completely farcical Campari for Breakfast by Sara Crowe.
Love, Nina
by Nina Stibbe
There was this lady who used to come into our bookshop in Truro with her children. She normally had a massive rucksack with her and never wanted a bag, sometimes we'd see them all with cycling helmets and waterproof jackets. She was a friend of one of my colleagues. She was very chatty, very funny, you got the feeling she was probably a little scatty, she loved books (she told me she used to work in publishing). She had huge eyes and a Roman nose. Then I stopped seeing her in the shop. Then about a month ago, I read about this book being published which was a series of letters from a young lady working as a nanny in London to her sister. It had a good review, so I requested a copy. Blow me down with a feather, if the young lady on the front cover didn't bear a very close resemblance to the aforementioned customer (I never found out her name before this). Of course, it turns out she is the one and same.
My colleagues had said this is a good book to dip in and out of, but I had to read it all. It was very funny. When she was 20, Nina worked as live-in nanny to Sam (10) and Will Frears (9), sons of Mary-Kay Wilmers, editor of the London Review of Books, and Stephen Frears, director of films such as The Queen and High Fidelity. They all lived in a large house in a very literary part of London. Alan Bennett lived next door, Claire Tomalin just round the corner, Jonathan Miller up the road. But Nina was never fazed by any of this, indeed you get the impression that she didn't know who any of these people were at the time. Alan often pops over for dinner (food is mentioned in nearly every letter - Nina seemed to do most of the cooking, some a success, some not) and the conversations they have over dinner are hilarious. They all get on brilliantly, especially Nina with Sam and Will. She often mentions Sam's 'illness' and trouble with his eyes, and having to take him to Great Ormond Street Hospital. We never find out what is actually wrong with him. On researching, I found that Sam actually suffers from a rare condition called Riley-Day Syndrome - he wasn't expected to live beyond the age of 5. The condition affects the nervous system. He is going blind and cannot feel pain. But when he was 10 in this book, you wouldn't have noticed anything different, from the way the family and Nina are with him. The boys are very mature for their age, and their sense of humour is hilarious. Swearing appeared to be allowed by all in the household - funny and shocking at the same time.
All the letters are one-sided, from Nina to her sister Victoria. Nina openly admits that she never kept any of her sister's replies, not for any other reason other than not wanting to keep more paper than necessary in the house and having a good clearout.
She talks about becoming a mature student and studying English Literature at Thames Poly, and a little about her boyfriend Nunny. You feel that perhaps it's not a serious relationship, they hardly seem to see each other, and Nunny sounds like he's having fun with other girls when he's away. You feel the relationship is doomed. You get to find out in the Afterword at the end what happened between them.
There's possibly more letters coming in the future, and even a novel by Nina. Watch this space.
