Tony Parsons One For My Baby Review

Overall Rating

Very readable and emotionally moving. The characters are well-drawn, easy to identify with and the situations are realistic.

The 'plants' are telegraphed so that the plot sometimes appears like an identikit picture or a DIY knock-up.

Parsons' novels are written as if he has a 'How to write Novels' manual next to him all the time: the 'plants', that is the items that provide the plot twists and climaxes, are very easy to spot. However, his experience as a columnist means that the way he uses these plants and twists is not so obvious, and that makes for a very good read indeed. Many times in this and 'Man and Boy' I found myself moved by what Parsons had written and exclaimed that the novel has no right to be so good. What makes Parsons so successful is that he is so readable and we identify with his central characters and their comments on life.