Phoebe and Robert have decided that their elderly widowed father, James, is in need of some help. They're busy with their lives - Phoebe in Wales and Robert in London - and don't want to give them up, so take on a live-in carer for James. After a couple of false-starts, they find Mandy, their 'saviour from Solihull', and they willingly leave things to her unfailing good humour and capable hands. But gradually James seems to change, to find delight in banalities he'd previously avoided - daytime television, shopping trips and outings to garden centres - and Phoebe and Robert become concerned about how far under Mandy's spell he's falling.
I'll be upfront and say from the start that I was disappointed with this. When I originally received my review copy, I was hesitant about reading it at all.The subject matter of needing care for an elderly parent was a bit close to home, but in that regard I needn't have worried - it's not concerned with the nitty-gritty side of care, just uses it as a vehicle for a storyline. At first that moves along as you might expect - middle-aged children, grateful to have a burden taken off their hands, soon become worried about the influence the carer is having on their father - then, fortunately, there's a twist, but I was so uninterested in these self-centred characters, cushioned from real-life problems by income from trust funds, that by then I didn't care what happened.
Did the humour pass me by? Quite possibly. It's been known to happen. Other folks will find something hilarious and it won't raise a smile from me.
Did the characters just not appeal to me? Definitely. They seemed, at best, caricatures rather than real people. I couldn't care about them or their predicament.
Was it too close to home? No. I've been through this - without the unlimited trust fund package - and it doesn't have any resemblance to caring for elderly parents as I've experienced it.
I've enjoyed other books by Deborah Moggach and had expected much better from The Carer. In The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, she explored the world of elderly folk with humour and understanding - this book seems so slight by comparison.
No comments:
Post a Comment