'Us' by David Nicholls - a review

I, like everyone who read and enjoyed David Nicholls' international bestseller, One Day, was jumping at the bit to get my hands on this new novel by Mr Nicholls, especially as it was short-listed for this year's Man Booker Prize.

So what did I think?

'Us' is a story of Douglas and Connie, a couple whose only son is about to leave home for college, an event which in turn triggers a crisis in the marriage.

Douglas, a successful scientist, sees a chance to save his marriage to Connie, a failed artist, by taking her and their son on a Grand Tour of Europe. This epic journey, which has been meticulously planned by the obsessively organised Douglas, (laminated maps, hotels and train fares booked well in advance) also serves as a means to regain the respect of Douglas' son, the sullen Albie, whose idea of a good holiday is two weeks in Ibiza with his friends, rather than spending it with his bickering parents.

As you may imagine, the trip doesn't quite go to plan. Already on the train to Paris, Douglas, who has promised himself to be relaxed, becomes annoyed when Albie spends the whole of the journey either taking photos of train tracks, or sleeping, and so missing the whole excitement of the first leg of the Grand Tour. Albie wants to study photography, while Douglas thinks he should take a proper (preferably science) subject and not 'devote his life to a hobby'. It now occurs to Douglas that his son has not once taken a picture of his father, while there are several loving portraits of Connie in Albie's collection.

Soon we realise that it's the relationship between father and son which is the root of the marriage crisis. 

Or is it? 

Opposites attract, they say, and in this honest examination of a modern marrage and parenthood, David Nicholls puts this theory to a test. What if the differences between the couple, which so attracted the pair to each other at the beginning of the relationship, become the bones of constant rowing and dissatisfaction later in life? 

'Us' is written from the point of view of Douglas, so we don't get much of a glimpse into the minds of the artistic, disorganised, lazzer-fair parent, Connie, or the teenager Albie. But what we do get is an almost detached account of the small - and large - tragedies that two decades of marriage have thrown at this couple. And we get a lovely account of a journey around Europe - not perhaps a traditional holiday trip, but there are many beautiful descriptions of classic art pieces. Enough to make me want to take my family on a Grand Tour - or perhaps that's not such a good idea after all...

I enjoyed 'Us', and feel it was properly justified in being nominated for the Booker. Shame it didn't make it beyond the first round.

'Us' by David Nicholls

Published by Hodder Stoughton

£20.00 Hardback

£6.99 Kindle edition

  

David Nicholls at England's Lane Books

David Nicholls' latest novel, One Day, has been a huge hit both in the UK and overseas. It's a story of two people who first meet on the last day at university and then have a 'will they, won't they' -relationship for the next twenty years. The book is now being turned into a film, adapted by the author himself, and with Ann Hathaway and Jim Strugess in the lead roles.

Chairs lined up....

When getting the shop ready for this sell-out event, I was thinking that for some reason I always expect best-selling authors like David Nicholls to be difficult to deal with. After all, they have a great a talent and they've earned pots of money. Surely they can't be nice as well?

Books lined up...

Drinks lined up...

But when David walked into the shop, all smiles, looking a little shy, I was again reminded that authors, even the very successful ones, are normal people just like you and me. 

David was interviewed by Dan Carrier from Camden New Journal, who immediately put, not just the author, but also the audience at ease when he said how much he himself loved One Day.

Dan Carrier and David Nicholls.

When he asked David why he wrote a book spanning two decades, David replied that after his first two books, Starter for Ten and The Understudy, he wanted to write 'a more serious novel'. He'd adapted Hardy's Tess of the d'Urbervilles for BBC and was also working on a new adaptation of Dickens' Great Expectations. He was daunted by the task at first, especially writing from a third person point of view, but he didn't want to write another romantic comedy.

It must have helped that David had the plot very well charted before he began to write – he thinks this way of planning the book beforehand is due to his scriptwriting background. As a writer, I felt relieved when he told us he didn't have any particular routine in his writing - he'd tried to wake up at five am and write for two or three hours before his young family woke up, but said he was 'too bloody tired' to get any words out. 

When he began to write One Day, he wanted to use the plot device of one specific day in a year when the reader would meet the main characters. He thought a lot about what day it should be, because he didn't want the day itself to shadow the plot. So a birthday, Valentine's Day or similar was out of the question. When he hit on the idea of St Swithun’s Day, he was so pleased he made it the title of the book. His publishers only convinced him One Day would be a better name a few days before the book went into print.

David chatting to his fans and signing their books.

When at the end of the evening, after having signed a stack of books and talked to many of his fans personally, we asked David to pose for pictures with the England's Lane Books team and he enthusiastically agreed, I felt like giving him a hug (I didn't, honestly).

I hate pictures of myself but I just had to show you this one of me with David Nicholls.

I look forward to David's next book, along with a few thousand (million?) of his other fans.

PS. There's a brilliant short film about the event on the England's Lane Books web site here.