sections:
It is Christmas time in a small, modern, utterly featureless town somewhere in the Home Counties, where Bobby Booth lives. The main preoccupations of its inhabitants are drink – at the pub generally known as the Planet of the Apes because it is frequented by so many long-haired young men – and gossip, which at Bobby’s closest friend Roland’s Christmas party turns into violence…
Bobby manages a launderette for Roland, who is gross, periodically rich and a man without illusions. Previously Bobby was a school teacher whose class was interrupted one fateful day by slim, blonde journalist, Caroline. Despite Roland’s warning – he believes in sex, not marriage – Bobby marries her.
One evening an attractive brunette wanders into the launderette. It is her second visit, and in no time she has dragged Bobby into bed. Some time before, Bobby has been pronounced sterile. Caroline wants a baby – a baby by a real man, even if it is a milkman. The temptation to yield irrevocably to the charms of the brunette grows powerfully in Bobby. Whether he will yield forms the climax to the novel.
book reviews
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Erica Jong
“One of the wittiest books I’ve read in years.” - Auberon Waugh, Evening Standard
“ Must surely mark the arrival of a major new comic talent. I laughed and I laughed, read it in the state of tremulous excitement which must be the nearest we novel reviewers come to an understanding of heavenly bliss…the book is a corker – witty, intelligently observed, well written and original.” - Observer
“Expertly engineered sexual comedy…memorably witty.” - Punch
“Marvellously funny, a deft satirist, and able effortlessly to keep you reading…his book stands out because he genuinely likes his characters – an extremely rare thing in fiction and something to be celebrated.” - Sun
“Very funny…bawdy, witty, sometimes touching, the book more than lives up to its zany title.” - The Times
“Great sparkle, confidence and humour…I laughed a lot and have high hopes of Mr Bellamy.” - Sunday Telegraph
“Promising light comedy from a budding Leslie Thomas.” - Hampstead and Highgate Express
“I haven’t laughed so much since Lucky Jim…a good joke is a good joke.”
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