‘Temperamentally unsuited” to domestic life, Adele Vogel, a mother of three, writes witty plays after her husband, Roderick, has an affair with a factory worker, Phil, and then abandons his family for another woman.
“Adele: I see you’ve remarried.
Roderick: Yes, a more accomplished woman with a nice tinkling laugh.
Adele: But plumper?
Roderick: Well, not a boyish stick like you.
Adele: But you like boyish sticks.
Roderick: Not any more. I now prefer accomplished pears.”
Such comic moments pepper Nina Stibbe's debut novel, Man at the Helm, which takes a bleak subject and turns it into a wonderfully entertaining read.
A former commissioning editor at Routledge, Stibbe came to prominence last year with the publication of her memoir, Love, Nina. The book was based on letters the author sent to her sister in the 1980s while working as a nanny for Mary-Kay Wilmers, editor of the London Review of Books. Alan Bennett, Claire Tomalin and the film director Karel Reisz, among others, find themselves discussed as characters in the eagle-eyed nanny's letters, their visits to 55 Gloucester Crescent conveyed with flair and humour.
These same qualities shine through in Stibbe’s gem of a semiautobiographical novel, which she began writing in her 20s. Her eye for the absurd in everyday life and her characters’ spirited attempts to overcome adversity result in a heartrending narrative with plenty of laugh-out-loud moments.
Humour, compassion
In a bid to start over, Adele relocates her children and their animals from Leicester to rural Leicestershire, but she finds herself mired in depression, addicted to prescription pills and unable to carry out the most basic of tasks. The story is told by the middle child, nine-year-old Lizzie, who relates the family’s miserable situation with humour and compassion.
Fearful that they will be made wards of court, Lizzie and her innovative 11-year-old sister join forces to save the family. In addition to cooking, doing the laundry and acting as drug mules for their increasingly unstable mother, the girls set about finding her a new husband, the titular man: “When a replacement man at the helm is in place, the woman is accepted once again.”
The girls put together a Man List of potential candidates and issue invitations in their mother’s name. The list is both amusing and poignant, detailing the professions and suitability of the local men.
Relating the escapades that ensue – by turns comic, tragic and downright traumatic – Lizzie’s voice is part child, part adult looking back on a crazy period. A mix of childlike observation and wry commentary emerges, exposing the foibles of the adult world and beautifully rendering the despair of a lonely woman.
Divorcees and their offspring are not particularly welcome in the village. The beautiful and feckless Adele adds fuel to the fire with her disdain of ordinary life. The neglect of her children is at once appalling and understandable, such is Stibbe’s gift when it comes to relating character and perspective.
Lizzie rarely judges her mother’s behaviour, allowing the reader to make their own assumptions: “Our trips to London began because although our mother was happy with the pills overall, she soon realised she couldn’t get quite enough to keep up with her feelings of loneliness and misery.”
Lots of short scenes centred around provincial life – funfairs, garden parties, disastrous visits to relatives – provide plenty of action. The children’s endeavours result in a stream of male visitors eager to take advantage. Lizzie and her sister deal admirably with the disappointments, and their open-mindedness is refreshing: “People aren’t either goodies or baddies, they can be a mix of both.”
Adele doesn’t deal so well. Eventually her irresponsibility nearly lead the family to ruin. Rescued once again by her kids, she redeems herself by shaking off “the pig” and forcing herself out into the workplace.
For a woman with so little grasp on reality that she allows her children to watch her having sex with strangers, Adele is an oddly likeable character. She admits her mistakes and is honest about her inadequacies. Her job as a van driver for a laundry company wins the admiration of the villagers, in addition to some unlikely suitors.
Willing to accept help from the outside, Adele and her family come to realise that things are not as bad as they seem. “That was the thing about this village; you couldn’t do anything without a whole bunch of people knowing about it. You couldn’t even jump into a canal to drown yourself without people queuing up to jump in and drag you out.”
