Jason reviewed Evenings and Weekends by Oisín McKenna
Love Letter to London
5 stars
It's an ever more queer story of London, but with unusual wit, charm and insight. The humour is absolutely a selling point - McKenna slowly builds a richly developed cast, which he's quick to send up and it often comes across more like a script for a comedy serial than a book, but the energy is infectious and McKenna walks an ever harder line between happy/sad, humour/tragedy. It's a story of queer London set across generations and both England and Ireland, shown very much through a quintessentially English prism, but the traditions, and the unwritten taboos which feed that prism are pretty strongly challenged by the author, and Audible narrator Isobel Adomakoh-Young is remarkable, moving the tone on a dime from sympathy to incisive mockery. The book is a love letter to London after all, and to love, with its inconsistencies and messiness. It could be utterly cliché-ridden but not …
It's an ever more queer story of London, but with unusual wit, charm and insight. The humour is absolutely a selling point - McKenna slowly builds a richly developed cast, which he's quick to send up and it often comes across more like a script for a comedy serial than a book, but the energy is infectious and McKenna walks an ever harder line between happy/sad, humour/tragedy. It's a story of queer London set across generations and both England and Ireland, shown very much through a quintessentially English prism, but the traditions, and the unwritten taboos which feed that prism are pretty strongly challenged by the author, and Audible narrator Isobel Adomakoh-Young is remarkable, moving the tone on a dime from sympathy to incisive mockery. The book is a love letter to London after all, and to love, with its inconsistencies and messiness. It could be utterly cliché-ridden but not with the interwoven characters' inner worlds this well developed and utterly relatable - I miss it already.
