One of my favourite humour writers, this Toronto based gentleman has won many awards. This is a very different novel and his latest. Ball hockey and songwriting play prominent roles in this one, as does the fascination of the narrator with the Paris of the 1920s with the lost generation of Hemingway, Morley Callahan, Firzgerald, Pound, and other notables. One of his love songs becomes a seasonal sentimental hit.
The narrator, named Jack McMaster, is 62, but acts and thinks of himself as 35. Throughout the text he comes to gradually realize that his body is 62 even if he thinks of himself as only 35, providing some of the best humour about aging.
« One is when I wake up in the night, often more than once to pee. Apparently, my prostrate feels not 35, but has fully embraced life at 65. And secondly, the morning after a ball hockey game, when I swear I wake up occupying someone else’s body, maybe someone in their 80s, with enough stiffness in the legs to make rigor mortis a viable diagnosis. »
He insists that these are the only things making him feel his age, until in later chapters, he gradually comes up with more, for a total of 12.
« Now, at 62, my tear ducts operate on a hair trigger, and you never know what might set off the waterworks. »
The details of life in Paris are interesting and detailed, with the rich history, as he explores it and unravels mysteries, with the help of his new, perfect girlfriend decoding a lengthy diary. All the while he is deeply mourning the death of of his beloved wife from Covid more than two years previously.
The sex is implied and not explicit. But for someone raised in a family where public (or even private for that matter) displays of affection were absolutely taboo, there is away too much
hugging, too many tears, too much melodrama, and too much mushy sentimentality. The three women are also too perfect to be real. Others more attuned to their emotions may well disagree, and I suspect, without evidence, that women will enjoy it more than I did.
6.5/10
Overall, while Phallis has certainly not lost his sense of humour, I enjoyed this book less than some of his others
The Passionate Reader 