Lucy Beresford

Michael Arditti is the Graham Greene of our time

A review of Michael Arditti’s Widows and Orphans suggests that we are all waifs and strays now in our broken society

Duncan Neville is an unlikely hero for a novel. Approaching 50, divorced and the butt of his teenage son Jamie’s utter contempt, Duncan is also the eloquent yet mild-mannered editor of the Francombe Mercury, a local newspaper on its last legs. Francombe too has seen better days, not least since its pier burnt down in 2013 (an event covered fulsomely in the Mercury).

While Duncan negotiates a good take-over deal for Mercury staff and their pensions, he’s also trying to prevent the ruined pier from being developed into a sex theme park by his schoolboy nemesis Geoffrey Weedon. The fact that Duncan’s ex-wife Linda is married to Geoffrey’s brother doesn’t help. Thank goodness then for Ellen, a new arrival to Francombe after the jailing of her fraudster husband. And thank God for Henry the vicar, whose despair and guilt over his homosexuality soothe Duncan in his own periods of self-doubt.

A narrative like this plays to Arditti’s great strength, dissecting modern relationships. He has a mimic’s ear for inter-generational dialogue, as Duncan tries in vain to bond with Jamie, and Ellen’s son Neil and daughter Sue act out their teenage angst. Scene-stealer of the year award goes to Duncan’s splendidly caustic mother Adele, especially when she meets her match in Ellen’s hippy mother Barbara. Barbara’s polite thanks at being included for Christmas lunch is met with: ‘Not at all. We have a long tradition of inviting waifs and strays.’

Yet for all the sparky one-liners, the crisp satire on small-town preoccupations and the increasingly hilarious newspaper columns prefacing each chapter, this is a profound and unsettling book. Many of the lives portrayed possess an almost unbearable post-lapsarian sadness, the characters fully aware that something has been lost, if not quite fully grasping what that something might be.

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