23.10.2009

Passionate storyteller. Tony Parsons

Modern family novels from Tony Parsons

Tony Parsons was born in 1955 in Essex. Although he had already written a novel at the age of seventeen, he worked at the Gordon's gin distillery in London until summer 1976, when he started working for the NME (New Musical Express) as a punk journalist. This took him on the road with bands like The Sex Pistols.

He married Julie Burchill, a fellow NME journalist, and they had a son, Bobby, before divorcing.

He has a regular column in The Mirror and participates in the BBC arts programme, Newsnight Review. He has also written for, among other publications, The Face, Marie Claire, The Daily Mail, Arena, The Guardian, Elle, The Daily Telegraph, The Spectator, The Sunday Times, GQ and Red.

He has now re-married, and lives in London.

The Family Way. Paulo loves Jessica. He thinks that together they are complete--a family of two. But Jessica can't be happy until she has a baby, and the baby stubbornly refuses to come. Can a man and a woman ever really be a family of two?

Megan doesn't love her boyfriend anymore. After a one-night stand with an Australian beach bum, she finds that even a trainee doctor can slip up on the family planning. Should you bring a child into the world if you don't love its father?

Cat loves her life. After bringing up her two younger sisters, all she craves is freedom. Her older boyfriend has done the family thing before and is in no rush to do it all again. But can a modern woman really find true happiness without ever being in the family way?

If you are coming up to 30, whatever you do, don't do any of that. It will fuck up your whole day. So begins Man and Boy, Tony Parson's foray into fiction. Or non-fiction. Rumoured to be a roman à clef, the well-known journalist and broadcaster writes the story of a successful TV executive who brings up his child alone after a failed marriage--much like Parson's own life.

Harry Silver, the book's anti-hero, has it all: a beautiful wife, an angelic son and a high-paying job. His life is just about perfect, until one night he casually sleeps with a slim redheaded coworker who has "that kind of fine Irish skin that is so pale it looks as though it has never seen the sun". After the fateful night, his life falls apart. He loses his job and his wife in rapid succession, and finds himself a single, unemployed parent. It is an excellent education for a man who up until now has been immature and irresponsible, and Parsons has some strong points to make about the puerility of far too many contemporary males: "Being a man is like being chained to the village idiot." At times he piles on the disasters and plot-twists a little too thickly, but the ending is wildly romantic, redemptive and optimistic. In other words, Harry grows up.

Man and Wife, the sequel to Tony Parsons' bestselling debut Man and Boy, follows the marital and parental misadventures of Harry Silver, a mawkish North London television producer. Harry has remarried. Second wife, Cyd, and her feisty daughter, Peggy, provide him and his Phantom Menace obsessed son, Pat, with a family. Harry's luck couldn't be better. His television show, Fish on Friday, is a hit and Cyd's posh catering company, Food Glorious Food, is thriving. However, Harry is not the only one starting again. His ex-wife Gina has also remarried. Her partner Richard (who must be the only thirtysomething male on the planet who hates Star Wars) is Pat's "new father." When the couple announce they are moving to America--taking Pat with them--Harry reacts, in time-honoured fashion, by attacking Richard. Separated from his son by the Atlantic and struggling as Peggy's stepfather, Harry begins to yearn for a good old-fashioned "normal, family life"--the kind his lovely old mum and dear departed dad enjoyed.

Man and Wife stands on its own as a brilliant novel about families in the new century, written with all the humour, passion and superb storytelling that have made Tony Parsons a favourite author in over thirty countries.

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