An excellent memoir and a DNF novel – Dyer & Fruttero/Lucentini

A review of my first non-fiction read of the year, an excellent memoir and my first DNF of a novel I so wanted to love….

Homework by Geoff Dyer

Dyer is one of those eclectic authors who turns his hand to many forms – be it fiction or non-fiction. I remember enjoying his novelistic biographical book But Beautiful set in the world of jazz a couple of decades ago, (one to revisit sometime), and I simply adored his short nf book Broadsword calling Danny Boy taking us through the film of Where Eagles Dare, scene by scene, which was an hilarious tribute to the much-loved film. His book Zona on of the Tarkovsky film Stalker, gave me a whole new appreciation of it which enhanced the viewing considerably. You can see the breadth of his writing on his website – as with the above examples, you can see he is writing about things he loves for the large part. Now he turns his gaze on himself, which brings us to his latest book, a memoir.

Homework follows Dyer through his childhood in Cheltenham up to Oxford where he read English at Corpus Christi. We’re of an age: he was born in 1958, me a couple of years later, so I can say from the outset that his experience resonated with me. Cheltenham was not unlike Coulsdon and Purley, smaller towns on the outskirts of Croydon where I grew up.

Dyer is an only child; his parents, known by their middle names of John and Mary, a sheet metal worker and dinner lady. Their house was an end-of-terrace extended two up two down, with a front room that was only used for visitors and special occasions only (as was the wont in those days). The chapters following his childhood were a delight – the joys of playing conkers in the playground, free school milk (Dyer hated it, I drank mine everyday, but maybe I was luckier in that it was never on the turn by break time). There were also constant scuffles and banter between the boys like this very non-PC by today’s standards example,

‘You’re a homo,’ and older boy told me in the playground one day without prelude or provocation. I had no idea what he meant but could tell it had not been intended as a compliment.
‘What’s a homo?’ I asked Gary, the leading authority on all the latest words making the rounds at school.
After a pause long enough to suggest that he himself was in unfamiliar linguistic territory, he gave his verdict.
‘It’s a double spastic,’ he said.

Less controversial ground comes with the TV series of puppeteers Gerry and Sylvia Anderson, Action Man dolls for boys, and Brooke Bond Picture Cards – these were the equivalent of cigarette cards for tea-drinkers, one or two cards coming with each pack of tea, to be stuck into separately purchased albums. When I commented on Bluesky about how much I was enjoying the book – it’s these cards that got so many replies from other readers – we all enjoyed that partiular nostalgia trip, and yes, we collected them religiously in our household.

Now, of course, I look back on these albums with as much fondness as my parents could ever have done. Arnoldian or Reithian in spriti, they are reminders of how educational British life was back then. That was the declared purpose of Look and Learn, an illustrated weekly magazine that first appeared in 1962; tea cards achieved the same aim incidentally, as a kind of intended side-effect. You bought tea, a drink, and learned something – about trees, animals or flags – with an enthusiasm that needed no encouraging. Quite the opposite. As a concession to my eagerness i was allowed to slit the green outer tea packet and extract the card before the teas were stored in the pantry. ‘This series of card is offered in the interests of education by Brooke Bond.’ There was a touching, down-home quality to this educational initiative in the service of brand loyalty.

All too soon came the horrors of the 11+ exam, the test that decided which secondary school you’d go to – the successful children went on to the Grammar School, the others were consigned to the Secondary Modern. Dyer was brainy, so was destined for Cheltenham Grammar, and he describes it as a ‘meomentous event’ in his life. But he takes a more cynical view of the exam’s purpose:

I understand that the purpose of the 11-plus was not to send a few clever kids – kids, more exactly, who’d passed the 11-plus – to grammar school. That was a side-effect or corollary of the larger aim and intention: to ensure a steady flow of workers who would not go to grammar school, who would fail the 11-plus, go to seondary moderns and on to apprenticeships, to jobs in trades and factories.

Dyer’s author photo on this book is him as a teenager sitting on his bed with some comics; the decor is pure 1970s and the wall is covered with posters, plus a Chelsea FC pennant, (you can see it on his website). Dyer discovers music, prog rock, making him a man after my own heart in that respect. He also discovers literature which will lead to him going up to Oxford to read English.

Alongside Dyer’s own story is that of his parents. Both private people, Dyer can talk touchingly about his mother’s disfiguring birthmarks which she hid from all, now they are no longer with us. This is Dyer at his most serious, usually he is witty and self-deprecating and full of curiosity. I’ve only picked out a few highlights from Dyer’s memoir, but it is a fantastic read, particularly if you grew up in the same decades, or if you have a particular love of the 1960s and 1970s. He’s a real prose stylist, always lucid and with that great sense of humour. I must read more, and try his novels.

Source: Own copy – Canongate hardback 2025, 282 pages. BUY at Waterstones via my affiliate link.

An Enigma by the Sea by Carlo Fruttero and Franco Lucentini – DNF

Translated by Gregory Dowling

My first DNF of the year is the third of Italian duo’s mystery novels to be translated by Dowling for Bitter Lemon Press. I loved the first two – The Lover of No Fixed Abode set in Venice, and Runaway Horses set at Siena’s Palio. They were originally published during the late 1980s early 1990s, and the text is characterised by a knowing narrator in both.

The third one follows the same format, relocated to the North Italian Tuscan coast at the end of the season, where we follow the lives and loves of those folk who are overwintering at La Gualdana, a community of luxury holiday homes, and the village folk who do the gardening, cook, clean and provide security for the enclave.

It begins promisingly – the young son of an American woman goes missing on the beach. She turned her back for a few seconds to put a littered fag packet in the bin and he was gone. It takes a while, but one of the security guards finds him up the beach near the forest, phew! As the pages go on, we dive deep into the lives of the residents, from Eladia, the tarot reading friend of Signora Borst, to Max & Fortini a pair of comedians with jok-writer’s block, to Count Giro who has brought Katia a model with him.

The blurb promised shades of Agatha Christie and Umberto Eco, plus a body, which was probably why I kept reading for over half of the book before giving up as nothing of note happened. At 414 pages, this was just too much character building for me, and I gave up at page 215 – before a body appeared. That said, it was enjoyable in parts, but the large cast of characters to be introduced in depth just took too long. I do hope that Dowling will translate the fourth and final mystery they wrote…

Source: Review copy – thank you. Bitter Lemon Press, 2026, 414 pages. BUY at Waterstones via my affiliate link.

Both these novels come from indie publishers.