Good Material (2024) by Dolly Alderton

 Book Review

Good Material (2024)

by Dolly Alderton

  Good Material, the new novel by English writer Dolly Alderton, is our book club pick for tomorrow night.  While I'm not fundamentally opposed to a relationship/break-up novel it's not a genre I typically engage.  I've experienced by own relationships and break-ups over the years and it doesn't seem like a particularly interesting topic, categorically speaking.  But there are exceptions to every rule- just look at the rise of Sally Rooney, who became a literary icon based on little more then whimsical and witty banter between two young Irish people.  I really liked her first novel- or maybe it was her second- the one that catapulted her to global notoriety. 

  Based on some positive reviews I'd read and what I know about the author I had an inkling this might be a better than average example of this category- the mere fact that it got released in the United States by a big publisher is a clue, because if you go to London you will see they have their own domestic versions of the type of books that mirror ours but which never get released in the United States.  The ones that have made it across- Bridget Jones,  the Nick Hornsby oeuvre- are inevitably softened and transposed as they make their way up the American cultural stair case.   

  Fundamentally a break-up novel,  I found the first 80 percent of the book (I read it on my Kindle) extremely tedious and occasionally funny and the last 20 percent pretty gripping.  Specifically, we get the whole book from the perspective of the guy in the relationship- a balding, semi-failed stand-up comedian who supports himself picking up shifts at his friend's cheese stall and mc'ing and performing at third-tier corporate events and weddings, that for some reason, want to book a stand-up comedian.  Andy, as it turns out, is less interesting than Jen, but Alderton keeps us from her thoughts until the end of the book. 

  At various times as I made it through Andy's post-break travails, it occurred to me that Alderton might have constructed a male version of the manic pixie dream girl- a whimsical figure, typically sporting bangs and a very louche attitude to the necessities of adult life.  In fact, if I could ask the author one question about this book it would be to what degree she was aware of the trope/character and whether it influenced her writing of this male character.

   At the end I was gratified by the fact that Jen's observations about Andy matched my own assessment- maybe that is the point?  But certainly Good Material really pulls itself together with the third fact.