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Books : Fiction : Contemporary Fiction: 1970 Onwards : Authors A-Z : C : Calman, Claire
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Some things just can't be undone. For Scott and Gail, Scott's five-minute indiscretion was the end of their 15-year marriage. Told from the individual perspectives of each member of the family, every chapter is a new voice and the family takes it in turns to tell us its story.Scott is the husband and father, who feels rather a failure at both, and wonders how he will survive with the binliner of belongings his wife tossed out onto the front lawn; Gail, the wife and mother, is sick of being the responsible parent, and questions whether Scott's affair was just the excuse she was looking for to get out of her marriage; Nat, or Natty, is the 13-year-old son who resents his father for leaving, but likes to distract himself by winding up his little sister; and Rosie is a precocious nine-year-old, who loves her Daddy, the colour mauve, lollies and glittery nail polish.
Lessons for a Sunday Father is a clever, funny and poignant treatment of a sore subject--the break up of the family. It follows on from the success Calman achieved with Love is a Four Letter Word, for which she was short-listed for the "Finest First Novel Featuring Biscuits on the Cover" award. Calman is a writer whose awards even reflect her cynical and quirky sense of humour! --Neena Dutta
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Georgia Abrams, the heroine of Claire Calman's third novel I Like it Like That, leads a black-and-white kind of life, her clothes come in shades of monochrome, her flat is tiny, tidy and neat and her boyfriend is 'Stephen with a p-h'. Her family can be rambunctious and unruly, but everything else seems pretty much under control, including her wildly curly hair, which she carefully straightens every morning. From chapter one it's obvious that this "sensible and well-behaved" character is about to experience a bit of dramatic disruption. And, as this is romantic fiction, the agent of chaos is a man. Photographer Leo crashes into her door and her life. He's funny and flirty and has a knack of questioning Georgia's carefully edited world view. The chemistry between them sparks and crackles, verbally and emotionally, but Claire Calman keeps the sexual tension (and there's plenty) unresolved with some well-paced family drama.Snippets of Georgia's childhood explain why she always feels the need to always behave like "a grown up". Family lunches, brunches and parties illuminate her character, she isn't a boring control freak, she can be "mean-spirited, judgmental, unjust, unkind". But she's also warm, loving 'passionate and deeply silly'. I Like It Like That is a love story, but it's also the tale of how Georgia learns to live an untamed, curly-haired life, complete with a red velvet wedding dress, and groom who's name isn't spelt with 'p-h'.--Eithne Farry
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Nobody could fail to be won over by the self-deprecating charm of Claire Calman's introduction to her first novel: "despite popular demand that she should go back to magazines, she is now working on another book". Actually, that's good news for readers--those who pick up this sharp and witty meditation on sex and the other element that occasionally goes with it, Love is a Four Letter Word, will definitely be looking out for the second novel.Calman's heroine Bella is trying to remember what sex is like. Wasn't it something that happened somewhere between the talking-and-going-out-to-dinner bit and the sobbing-and-eating-too-many-biscuits bit? But she is determined to fall off her sexual wagon before she becomes a virgin again ("all sealed over like pierced ears if you don't wear earrings for too long"). But there's one thing Bella is not prepared to hear again: the "L" word. Her body might be making hormonal demands, but she's resolute in not wanting the emotional baggage of love again. Nobody will be surprised, of course, to learn that she's back up to her neck in romantic trouble again--and why is it she always ends up with the wrong kind of man? Like all the best comic novelists, Calman crams her perky narrative with a host of highly diverting characters to surround her beleaguered heroine. The plotting, too, betrays no sign of first-novel inexperience: the situations that contrive to sink Bella deeper in the mire are all as imaginative as they are funny. And Calman's narrative voice always sounds just the right note, as when Bella is ironically considering becoming a nun:
Mother, I'm joining a convent. You'll never seen me again. Who knows, in her austere cell she might even take up painting again. Alone, the patterns of her thoughts would be clear and vibrant, shocking the virgin paper with their boldness, her brush caressing and seductive. She snorted at herself: Saint Bella of the Divine Brushstrokes.
--Barry Forshaw
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Some things just can't be undone. For Scott and Gail, Scott's five-minute indiscretion was the end of their 15-year marriage. Told from the individual perspectives of each member of the family, every chapter is a new voice and the family takes it in turns to tell us its story.
Scott is the husband and father, who feels rather a failure at both, and wonders how he will survive with the binliner of belongings his wife tossed out onto the front lawn; Gail, the wife and mother, is sick of being the responsible parent, and questions whether Scott's affair was just the excuse she was looking for to get out of her marriage; Nat, or Natty, is the 13-year-old son who resents his father for leaving, but likes to distract himself by winding up his little sister; and Rosie is a precocious nine-year-old, who loves her Daddy, the colour mauve, lollies and glittery nail polish.
Lessons for a Sunday Father is a clever, funny and poignant treatment of a sore subject--the break up of the family. It follows on from the success Calman achieved with Love is a Four Letter Word, for which she was short-listed for the "Finest First Novel Featuring Biscuits on the Cover" award. Calman is a writer whose awards even reflect her cynical and quirky sense of humour! --Neena Dutta
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3 books in one.
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Georgia Abrams, the heroine of Claire Calman's third novel I Like it Like That, leads a black-and-white kind of life, her clothes come in shades of monochrome, her flat is tiny, tidy and neat and her boyfriend is 'Stephen with a p-h'. Her family can be rambunctious and unruly, but everything else seems pretty much under control, including her wildly curly hair, which she carefully straightens every morning. From chapter one it's obvious that this "sensible and well-behaved" character is about to experience a bit of dramatic disruption. And, as this is romantic fiction, the agent of chaos is a man. Photographer Leo crashes into her door and her life. He's funny and flirty and has a knack of questioning Georgia's carefully edited world view. The chemistry between them sparks and crackles, verbally and emotionally, but Claire Calman keeps the sexual tension (and there's plenty) unresolved with some well-paced family drama.
Snippets of Georgia's childhood explain why she always feels the need to always behave like "a grown up". Family lunches, brunches and parties illuminate her character, she isn't a boring control freak, she can be "mean-spirited, judgmental, unjust, unkind". But she's also warm, loving 'passionate and deeply silly'. I Like It Like That is a love story, but it's also the tale of how Georgia learns to live an untamed, curly-haired life, complete with a red velvet wedding dress, and groom who's name isn't spelt with 'p-h'.--Eithne Farry
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