Six Degrees of Separation: Sandwich by Catherine Newman

First Saturday of the month and time for the super monthly tag Six Degrees of Separation, which is hosted by Kate at Booksaremyfavouriteandbest, Six Degrees of Separation #6degrees picks a starting book for participants to go wherever it takes them in six more steps. Links to my reviews are in the titles of the books chosen.

This month our starting book is… 

Sandwich by Catherine Newman

Billed as a witty family drama set during their annual beach holiday which I’ve read good things about, I haven’t read Sandwich, but do own a copy – I shall probably keep that for next year, as it’s undoubtedly a summer type book. So I shall move on with my first link: A sandwich features in…

Radcliffe by David Storey

Many apologies in advance for dropping the tone at the end of this segment! Storey’s 1963 novel, Radcliffe is the story of Leonard Radcliffe who, as the story begins, is nine years old and starting at school. Leonard is smart but shy and is targeted by bullies, however he is rescued by Vic Tolson. The two boys’ friendship will become the defining one of their lives. When they meet again as adults, their friendship becomes physical, overpowering and fatal for one of them. In the novel’s most memorable scene, Vic tricks Leonard into eating a sandwich into which he’d put his excrement! (as my Mum put it!) …. Sorry!

Moving swiftly on, another novel published in 1963 was…

The Girls of Slender Means by Muriel Spark

Set mainly between VE and VJ days in 1945 at the end of WWII, TGoSM follows the lives and loves of a group of young women who live in a hostel in Kensington called the ‘May of Teck Club’ after Queen Mary, the wife of George V. The story flits back and forth to before and after something big happens (which I am not going to give away). There are main girls in the story: Jane – a publisher’s assistant who puts great store by her ‘brain-work’ not being as thin or attractive as the others; Joanna is a rector’s daughter, who has moved to London to avoid her propensity for falling for curates; and Selina, who is beautiful and, well, slender. There is much swapping of dresses for ration coupons, boyfriends, suitors and colleagues and the other residents of the club. Spark satirises them all perfectly.

Another book with a Kensington setting is:

Some Hope by Edward St Aubyn

In the third of St Aubyn’s Patrick Melrose novels, Patrick is back in Britain, older but not necessarily wiser – but clean! One of the wonderfully funny set pieces in this novel is a party attended by Princess Margaret. In the 2018 TV adaptation, she was played by Harriet Walter, who some years ago, also starred in a TV adaptation of …

The Cherry Orchard by Anton Chekhov

Chekhov’s last great play (1904). We have a crumbling country estate in which they are having to sell off the much-loved cherry orchard to make ends meet and which no doubt someone will parcel up into smaller plots.  The family all arrive from the station for one last gathering before the sale. It starts off with everyone talking about different things at the same time … and it continues for virtually the whole play in this vein.  There is a slight narrative drive, but it’s mostly the family bickering or talking over each other, with some moments of melodrama to punctuate the conversation. Chekhov’s striving for a modern, naturalistic way of speaking in his plays doesn’t read as well on the page as the stage or screen. They’re ensemble pieces with no one character dominating for the most part, and that adds to the rambling feel.

I’ll take an oblique cherry link to

Jackie Brown by Elmore Leonard

In which bond bailsman Max Cherry falls for the titular Jackie Brown. Originally titled Rum Punch, this novel was reissued and retitled after the Tarantino film of it. If you’ve seen the film, you will recognise most of the novel, as the majority of the dialogue came straight off the page from the pen of Elmore Leonard, who is possibly the hippest American novelist ever! He blends a disparate bunch of characters into a complex roller-coaster plot involving the 44-year-old air hostess smuggling in money for an illegal arms dealer, who has a hippy beach blond girlfriend, and an ex-con bank robber henchman. Then in comes Max Cherry, who falls for the hostess; he’s followed by the cops who raise the stakes further …

My final link is to another novel by Elmore Leonard which has been adapted for the screen…

Maximum Bob by Elmore Leonard

I have a fondness for this novel by Leonard, as it was my first book group pick in 2004, and it went down well. Judge Bob Gibbs’ is the most unpopular man in Florida (he has a rival now!). He’s a redneck, known as Maximum Bob for his hard sentencing for small crimes. Then someone throws an alligator on his porch. Add in a bunch of other unforgettable characters, including probation officer Kathy and Leanne, Bob’s wife – a former ‘mermaid’ in a show who had a psychic experience underwater, amongst others and it’ll get complicated in the way that only Leonard can write. Beau Bridges played Bob in the late 1990s TV adaptation – which seems to have sunk without a trace, sadly – I remember enjoying it.

An eclectic bunch of links for you this time. Where will yours take you?