Available:*
Library | Call Number | Status |
|---|---|---|
Searching... R.H. Stafford Library (Woodbury) | LP FICTION BRE | Searching... Unknown |
Bound With These Titles
On Order
Summary
Summary
On the verge of his 60th birthday. Bill Stratton's wife told him she was leaving for another man. He'd been under the impression they had a happy marriage. She assured him that since the second week of their honeymoon, she'd known she'd married the wrong person. This all came as a bit of a shock to Bill. And now, after a little soul searching, Bill Stratton, a mildly famous television newsreader who's managed to hold on to (most of) his looks, is about to discover the world of post-menopausal dating.
Author Notes
Simon Brett was born in Worcester Park, Surrey on October 28, 1945. He attended Dulwich College and then Wadham College, Oxford, where he studied English. Between 1967 and 1977, he was a producer with BBC Radio. He also spent a couple of years working for Thames Television.
In 1975, he published his first 'Charles Paris' novel. By 1979, Brett had become a full-time writer. He has written and edited children's books, humorous novels and several anthologies. In 1986, he introduced another sleuth: Mrs Pargeter.
As well as the Charles Paris and Mrs. Pargeter detective series, he is also the author of the radio and television series After Henry, the radio series No Commitments and the bestselling How to be a Little Sod . His novel A Shock to the System was filmed starring Michael Caine.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (3)
Publisher's Weekly Review
In this comedy of sexual manners from prolific British author Brett (the Charles Paris mystery series, etc.), a man closing in on 60 experiences a "second adolescence" after he unwillingly agrees to divorce his wife of 40 years. Bill Stratton, a semiretired television news reader and bestselling author of humor books, is stunned when his self-righteous wife, Andrea, leaves him for a doctor named Dewi. But when Bill realizes that his minor celebrity translates into currency on the dating market, he plunges into promiscuity, beginning with a one-stand stand with the willing Maria (a setup courtesy of his agent, Sal Juster), and continuing with a parade of women he mostly meets at speaking engagements. An encounter with a 20-something who collects Disney figurines confirms his preference for women his own age-wrinkled skin and dentures become the touchstones of Bill's odyssey of discovery. Brett's sublime joke here is that Bill's very late sexual awakening is actually a coming-of-age story. Will Bill settle down with Andrea's old friend Ginnie, the cool voluptuous colleague Caroline, or continue to play the field? Brett's answer is incidental; what matters to randy, ruminant Bill and the reader is the pleasure of the journey. (Mar.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Kirkus Review
A wry study of a man, 60, single again, and willing--nay, eager--to bonk anyone who'll have him. When his wife Andrea reaches menopause, Bill Stratton assumes that her condition accounts for her lack of interest in sex and resigns himself to privation. Ah, well, he reflects, the marriage is sturdy enough to survive abstinence. Bill soldiers on to middling fame as the newscaster who coins the phrase "By way of contrast" (a device that leads to an amusing on-air anecdote), then spawns a series of BWOC books; Andrea continues with her National Health Service chums, saving the planet from shallow types like Bill. One day, after 40 years of marriage, she tells him she's known he was all wrong for her since the second week of their honeymoon and is leaving him for Dr. Dewi. Bill ponders this farewell as deeply as his shallowness will allow and soon begins noticing breasts everywhere, especially on his agent Sal, his overly ripe BWOC manager Carolyn and Andrea's friend Ginnie, an actress with a wicked sense of humor. Then he goes a lot further than noticing them on scores of women he wines and dines and beds. An energetic cuddle, a quick getaway and flowers in the morning are his signatures until mild heartburn drives him to the pub for bouts of misogynist depression with Trevor. When Andrea succumbs to lung cancer, Bill, true to form, does not have an epiphany but does, to his surprise, fall in love, sort of, this time with the right woman for him. Brett, whose wry chatter has enlivened mysteries starring Charles Paris, Mrs. P and Fethering (The Witness at the Wedding, 2005, etc.), has great fun playing around with sex past 60. Whatever your age, you'll have fun with this one too. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
Prolific Brit Brett, whose output includes TV scripts, children's books, and three detective series (Charles Paris, Mrs. Pargeter, and the Fethering mysteries), is remarkably adept at treating serious subjects (failed aspirations, lost love, alcoholism) with a light hand. There's something dignified about all his characters, even in their worst pratfalls, and something wonderfully cheering in Brett's social comedy. So it is with Brett's latest, which at first seems like a frothy sex comedy of errors but progresses, by easy stages, from a hero's picaresque journey from bed to bed into a coming-of-age novel. The twist is that the coming-of-age is that of a 60-year-old man. Hero Bill Stratton has had an easy, lucky life--he is a minor TV-news celebrity and has amassed a fortune based upon spin-off books. At novel's start, Stratton's wife of 40 years has just left him. No dark night of the soul here, just Stratton's recognition that he has a lot of sexual catching up to do. Again, this comes easily to him, and he collects conquests as easily as he does catchy news stories. The comedy comes from Stratton's entirely passive character gradually growing unsettled and then traumatized before reaching an entirely satisfying resolution. Brett at his witty and perceptive best. --Connie Fletcher Copyright 2006 Booklist
