The face of a shocked teenager stares out at me. Eyes wide, saying "What am I supposed to have done this time?" No text, just that image, not even in colour. That's the cover of Bruce Robinson's The Peculiar Memories of Thomas Penman. A coming of age story of teenage (and childhood) misadventure in the 1950s, it takes in all the usual suspects – families and their histories, girls, life and death – and some more interesting ones – enemas, Morse code and defecating. I suppose to be expected from the man who, as it turns out, wrote the screenplay for Withnail and I.
A comic romp of misdeeds and trouble, I'm sure there are elements of autobiography within the story. I was most reminded of Irvine Welsh and the book compares favourably – our young protagonist could certainly have been a character in Glue, for example. The story has a heart, too, which lifts it above simply being a gross-out comedy or series of unlikely events. The connection between Thomas and his grandfather, who is dying of cancer, is touching in the way that sometimes the young and the old get on where those generations in between don't. Their communication method through Morse code, their individual secrecy and shared secrets, is a nice touch.
So all in all an entertaining read and a good one too. But I can't stop feeling that there was something missing about it that stopped it being a great one. Maybe it's the distance between the story and my own life, maybe I couldn't quite engage with the characters emotionally, I don't know, but while I did enjoy it, I'm still left thinking that it could have been something more.
Book number: 27
Title: The Peculiar Memories of Thomas Penman
Author: Bruce Robinson
Category: Books by authors I've never heard of
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