The Carer by Deborah Moggach

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. 

Publisher -  Tinder Press
Genre - Adult fiction,

The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel by Deborah Moggach

review by Maryom

 Norman is becoming too much of a problem for retirement homes to cope with. Not because of any health issues, but because of his improper behaviour towards the nursing staff! When ALL the local homes refuse to take him, he's forced to move in with family; his daughter Pauline guiltily feels she should look after him but son-in-law Ravi just wants him out of the house! Along with a cousin from India he comes up with a plan - to open a retirement home in a former hotel in Bangalore; the cost would be lower than in Britain, the weather better and surely Norman's reputation couldn't have reached that far! Filled with enthusiasm they produce brochures and soon elderly British residents are filling the rooms and discovering a new way, and lease, of life.

This is one of a big stack of Deborah Moggach novels I won in a Hay Festival competition last year and the first I've got round to reading as part of my New Year reading plans  It was previously published as These Foolish Things, and re-named as a film tie-in, though I suspect the plot of the film and the book differ.

It's a delightful, wry comedy about a group of 70-somethings, growing old, not quite disgracefully but certainly not in the sedate style their children expect of them. All the 'old folks' are still full of life and not at all ready to be written off just yet! In India they feel like they can shake of their 'oldies' image and just be themselves - maybe a little slower moving around but that gives all the more chance to soak up new experiences. For some there's even the possibility of a new romance ...

While light-hearted, it did make me wonder about the way we think about 'old people', particularly the assumption that having reached a certain age they're too old to care about anything, that sitting in a retirement home, maybe glued to daytime TV, is enough for them - I can't imagine it would be for me!

Maryom's review - 4.5 stars
Publisher - Vintage
Genre - Adult Fiction,  comedy

Buy The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel from Amazon

Maryom's New Year's Reading Plans

I'm going to be hitting the New Year running with several 2014 publications read and ready to review - The Lemon Grove by Helen Walsh, Adele Parks' Spare Brides and Donal Ryan's The Thing About December for starters - all very very good in their differing ways.

This site is primarily about reviewing newly-published books kindly supplied by authors, publishers and publicists.This year though I want to find time for a bit of 'extra-curricular' reading.
Firstly, some of the stash of my own books that's constantly being added to but never read. I've made a good start on this by having already read one of my booky Christmas presents Blood Red, Snow White by Marcus Sedgwick but I have a huge pile of books picked up here and there, books I really want to read but that get ignored in favour of 'review' books.

Secondly, I want to catch up on some highly recommended books/authors that I've never read. No matter how many books you read, there's always some that slip the net. So this is a starting list and if anyone has other suggestions feel free to make them....

Deborah Moggach - because I won a stack of her novels in a Hay Festival-related competition
Steinbeck (though I did read some back in school) and Chekhov's short stories, both favourites of Rob Around Books ,
Donna Tartt, recommended by crime writer Steven Dunne who said I 'must read' The Secret History and books that other bloggers have included in their 'picks of the year' - for example; Proxima by Stephen Baxter and Abominable by Dan Simmons recommended on the For Winter Nights blog 

Thirdly, if there's any time left, to revisit some old favourites. My shelves are stacked with books I love but haven't reread in years. They need to be aired once in a while.