Pip - Freya Norton

Pip is a professional clown who alternates working as Merry Martha at kid's parties with hospital clowning as Dr Pippity; she's the oldest of three sisters (Fen and Cat have their own novels, which I haven't read or bought) and is the family's reliable adviser, too caught up in solving their problems to have a life of her own. Zac is a high powered accountant with a six year old son and a friendly ex, who compensates for his grey job with a flat filled with vibrant colour.
The story itself is predictable but workable - Pip and Zac meet several times, though Pip is assuming her different personas each time. Pip is enticed into a hot romance with dashing paediatrician Caleb, while Zac has a friends-who-fuck arrangement with the cool and elegant Juliana. Zac is distracted by troubles at work, while Pip struggles with her commitment issues, caused by her mother leaving the family for a cowboy when Pip was six.

Interestingly, Pip and Zac don't have mind-blowing sex with each other (compared with other experiences), but Zac (at least) likes the sleeping part of their sleeping together, and neither of them seems concerned. I'm not sure what the problem is because they seem to turn each other on: "Pip travelled her hand over the bulge surging sideways and twisting behind Zac's trousers." Apparently his "straining cock" makes his trousers into a "lopsided marquee", while she has to move because she's "starting to stick to [her] knickers as it is."
Which brings me to the many things I didn't like about this novel. The style irritated me no end. Norton has three instances where "[X] was one thing, [Y]was another. But [Z] was something else entirely." The characters say things, but they also: shrug, proclaim, mimic, praise, offer, glower, and interject, in the space of just a few pages, to say nothing of panting, ruing and parrying.

And I have never in all my years of reading come across such an obvious example of an author telling when she should be showing - the first five pages of chapter three are designed to give us a picture of Zac. Do we see Zac doing anything? No. Do we hear his internal thoughts, or a conversation with another character? No. Is his environment described in the setting of some kind of scene? No. Instead Norton explains that, while you can often tell about a person from their clothing or their home:

you'd be hard-pressed to guess what Zac does from his dwelling, his dress or his disposition. Each is at odds with the other and none are remotely representative of the stereotypes traditionally associated with Zac's vocation.

She then tells us about his brightly coloured flat (he is evidently the bane of his local paint shop, but we are told about this rather than having a scene showing it); his choice of furniture that he loves rather than what designers dictate; his love of commercial fiction ("He read [Bridget Jones's Diary] on the tube going to and from work. He was aware that people stared at him. He didn't care."); his monotone wardrobe; his shiny but unused kitchen; and his happiness about his life.
Even more than that, though, was the voice of the author actually in the novel, managing to break any flow the reader might develop. At one point she asks Pip why she lied to Zac:

Pot. Kettle. Black. Pip? She can't hear me. She's on a roll with her imaginary family.

On another occasion she writes: "Now I know Zac is our hero - gentlemanly, sensitive, amusing, handsome." And that goes on for another fifteen lines, concluding with:

No. they oughtn't to come together - in any sense - tonight. The timing would be awry. There's half a book to go, anyway.

Twenty pages later Norton informs us that she's going to distract Pip from her sisters during a trip home, then tells us what's happening elsewhere. And twenty pages further on Norton remonstrates with her heroine for a paragraph, asking her is she's really that fragile, but

She can't hear me. Would she even listen if she could? See, she's swinging on the tyre swing like an ape on acid.

A stronger writer, or perhaps a different genre, could pull off this style, perhaps. But Pip irritated me so much I turned over page corners to mark examples of annoyance, though I am a courtly lover of books (rather than carnal - see the marvellous essay "Never Do That to a Book" in Anne Fadiman's brilliant Ex Libris). Had I read this a month ago it may have been impetus enough for me to have begun this blog. As it is, I am relieved to have a repository for my spleen, in addition to the many complaining phone calls and excerpts I subjected Lynn to. I see no more Norton in my future. - Alex