Crocodile Soup

I've just finished reading this book by Julia Darling, who lives in Newcastle upon Tyne, northern England. It's autobiographical in style, self-deprecating, about a young lesbian woman who works in a museum. She gives an account of her unusual upbringing with odd parents, her strange brother, and the weird encounters she has with people, both as a child and young adult. I liked the short, compact chapters, the wit and wry humour. I could imagine the character Gert played by Rita Tushingham as she was in the sixties.To recapture any further sense of the writing I should have to look at it again.

The book reminded me of Lullabies for Little Criminals by Heather O'Neill, who writes with similar honesty and lucidity, and whose character is also treated roughly by the world. Of course there is a great tradition of anti-heroic types in literature, from Holden caulfield in Catcher in the Rye, to Lucky Jim, and the characters in Hangover Square by Patrick Hamilton, Decline and Fall by Evelyn Waugh, and so on. I'm drawn to these books and these characters partly because I identify with them, but also because they lend themselves to the production of readable, entertaining books.