The Satsuma Complex

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It’s a book written by British comedian and national treasure Bob Mortimer. Of course I wanted to read this. If you don’t know who Bob Mortimer is, go to YouTube. His “Would I Lie to You?” appearances are legendary and absolutely hilarious, no matter how many times you rewatch them. I mean, if you don’t have tears in your eyes from laughing when Bob claims that he does his own dentistry, then you’re doing it wrong. So, it’s no surprise that I’m a Bob Mortimer fan and have been appreciating his quirky style of humour for years now. So it’s not surprising that, while reading The Satsuma Complex, I could hear his voice every time his lead character, Gary Thorn, opened his mouth. Who should buy this book? Fans of The Great British Bake Off, especially fans who have just started to notice how wobbly the show has got without her. The Bullet That Missed by Richard Osman

Burke’s podcast, Where There’s A Will There’s A Wake, revolves around death and Mortimer said he’d like to die fighting a bear – or hit by an articulated lorry carrying Flumps. There are dirty cops, a barista named Wayne who wears tight t-shirts to best show off his biceps and an eccentric neighbour Grace, and her dog Lassoo. And so begins Gary’s quest, through the estates and pie shops of South London, to finally bring some love and excitement into his unremarkable life… Writing style This is a book about a woman who essentially devolves (or evolves, as it would like us all to think) into an animal, which makes it a slightly less high-minded version of Paula Cocozza’s novel How to Be Human. It rips along at a decent clip and, even though O’Porter now lives in Los Angeles, does a very good job of depicting the empty aspirational scuzz of the London creative scene. In fact, this is where it thrives. The chapters about Mia’s awful workplace are much more compelling than the ones where she stops washing and pretends to be a cat.Cover quote “His grasp of human loneliness and longing is beautiful and comforting” – Marian Keyes (again). Writing style Love Untold has a plot, but its real joy is in how Jones digs her fingernails into decades of complicated family history. The risk here would be to boil down at least one of the generations to stereotype, but Jones fiercely resists this. These are four complicated, singular women on their own paths and the story comes entirely from watching them rub against each other. It is stridently confident when it comes to hitting you around the head with sentiment until you relent and start crying, too. Jones could write books like this for the rest of her life and they’d all be brilliant.

Some people bury their faces in their smart phones all day. Not me. I’ve had the same old Nokia phone for years and years and have never bothered with social media and the like. I don’t see the point of it; I’ve got enough strangers in my life as it is.” Previous works An autobiography (And Away…) and a Mortimer and Whitehouse: Gone Fishing tie-in gift book. When the police arrive on Gary’s doorstep the next morning saying Brendan is missing and he was the last person to see him alive, the book takes all sorts of twists and turns. There’s a bit of a mystery, a bit of romance, and a bunch of insight in human beings and their behaviour. Main character Technically, the Thursday Murder Club are an ensemble – Elizabeth, Joyce, Ron and Ibrahim – but the leader is arguably Elizabeth, an ex-spy and primary carer for her husband, who has dementia. And so begins Gary's quest, through the estates and pie shops of South London, to finally bring some love and excitement into his unremarkable life?

NO MAJOR SPOILERS

Nevertheless, marooned like desert islands in an endless ocean of guff, there is a smattering of truly sumptuous passages of writing. Sadly, they’re not arranged in any kind of structure that might approximate a story. (Paul Connolly)

The writing style I enjoyed as it was very reminiscent of how Bob tells all of his tales anyway: short, sharp sentences that set the scene nicely without any fluffery. It was funny in the right places, but I think could have been injected with a little more (it was also particularly Bob-humour as well, which was well received). Bob drops in goofy stuff in an almost flattish sounding narrative. Sample ".. have never bothered with social media and the like.I don't see the point of it; I've got enough strangers in my life as it is". In serious parts - a cynical remark (like that of Marvin the robot) has you grinning. And yet, it was a plausible story that had it's highs. Also, the self deprecating meta was hilarious and not too overdone where different characters call the book in the novel "The Satsuma Complex" shit and boring.

So many comedians have published novels this year that I have begun to wonder whether writing one is an assignment in a yet-to-be-broadcast episode of Taskmaster. Most of them have confirmed the axiom that comics can’t write memorable fiction: even the novels of master funnymen such as Eric Morecambe and Les Dawson did not burnish their reputations.

In a year when laughing out loud and seeing the comical side of life seems more important than ever before, the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Comic Fiction 2023 has been awarded to Bob Mortimer for his funny and clever debut novel The Satsuma Complex.Like Spike Milligan, Mortimer has managed to use a novel for his distinctive comedic voice’ – The Telegraph Dystopian Fiction Books Everyone Should Read: Explore The Darker Side of Possible Worlds and Alternative Futures Plot A story told over four generations of Welsh women – an unstoppable pensioner, her estranged daughter, her abandoned daughter, and then her daughter – written by the actor and Gavin and Stacey co-creator Ruth Jones. Can these women heal the complex wounds that drove them apart? Gary also likes to engage in chit-chat with the squirrel he encounters in the park every day, imagining the other side of the conversation. He doesn’t have many mates, see: a couple of blokes he watches football with maybe, or the occasional exchange with the cantankerous old woman next door. Plot Gary, a down-at-heel London solicitor, goes for a drink with a friend. The next day, the friend goes missing. Meanwhile, Gary meets and falls for a mysterious woman. Could the two be connected? And why does Gary keep having conversations with a slightly belligerent squirrel? The debut novel by comedian Bob Mortimer has the answers.