Going Loco |
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Lynne Truss
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Pages: 256 (Paperback)
ISBN: 1861977336
Pub: Profile Books Ltd
Pub date: 2004-06-10
Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 382615
Editorial Review:
Going Loco is a sinister comic novel with the courage of its sardonic convictions: variations on the theme of twins, shadow doubles and cloning come together in a shifting cloud of entertaining uncertainties. Belinda is already leading a double life--her books about ponies and gymkhanas are a diversion from her serious study of doppelgangers--when the charming and endlessly self-reinventing Linda turns up in her life. Linda starts off as the cleaner of slatternly Belinda's dreams, but soon finds other bits of Belinda's life to move in on. Belinda's actress best friend Maggie, meanwhile, is horribly confused by identical twins in spite of having appeared in Shakespeare's comedies. Investigative journalists prowl around suspecting that Belinda's geneticist husband is a clone of himself, whereas the truth is even more gothic and bizarre.
This starts as a comedy of life among the suburban intelligentsia and progressively shifts its tone into a far darker kind of farce--there is an unsparing quality to its humour, which indicates a savagery about the interruptions of city life, which the author of Eats, Shoots & Leaves normally reserves for misplaced apostrophes.--Roz Kaveney
Reader Reviews:
Easy, entertaing read (7/10 people found this helpful)
I do not usually read comic novels but picked this up because I wanted a break from a run of very intense novels and recognised Lynn Truss's name from her recent best seller Eats, Shoots and Leaves. Initially I regretted my decision and almost gave up. The first chapter is very irritating. It introduces the central character, a whining middle class author, preoccupied by the presence of a circus rat who lives in her stomach and performs various stunts each time she feels anxious. I realised this was meant to be amusing but to be honest it was just tedious and too silly. However as I persevered the story grew on me. Essentially it is a farce and like all farces it would be far too complicated to describe the plot in detail, but basically it concerns double lives, stolen identities, cloning and the dangers of placing to much trust in your cleaning lady! As the pace picks up the plot contains enough preposterous events, coincidences and even gruesome deaths to keep you reading and smiling, if not actually laughing out loud. In the end it was the light, entertaing read I was looking for.
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