He pauses frequently to reflect upon his complicated history with Ben and the unhappy childhood that preceded it, and his narration is littered with keen yet cutting observations about people, their relationships, and society at large. A Goodreads friend recently posted a review of this book and I was so intrigued I got a copy from the library (Thanks Indieflower! I turned up on Joan and Michael’s West Hollywood doorstep late one March night, trailing my suitcase and substantially more emotional baggage in my wake. At boarding school, he forms a crypto-homosexual attachment to Ben Fitzmaurice, the effortlessly charming son of a wealthy aristocratic family; they become “best friends”. Brooks presents a case for making room for Bigfoot in the world while peppering his narrative with timely social criticism about bad behavior on the human side of the conflict: The explosion of Rainier might have been better forecast had the president not slashed the budget of the U.

People you considered the closest, most loyal, most intimate allies, will drift away from you and quite often, you won’t know why. The relationship is formalised when Martin takes the rap for Ben following a serious accident while they are at Cambridge University. For so long, we woman have turned our anger inwards, redirecting it towards ourselves and allowing it to manifest as shame. Ben, who hails from old money, and Martin, who grew up poor but is slowly carving out a successful career as an art critic, have been inseparable since childhood.I think a lot of people were yearning to talk about failure because they were exhausted pretending everything was perfect. Soon Martin is enjoying the high life at the Fitzmaurice family’s estate and becomes an extended family member.

When he wins a scholarship to Burtonbury School, he doesn’t wear the right clothes or speak with the right kind of accent.An esteemed art critic and author, after winning a scholarship to a fee-paying school, Martin is enthralled by the privileged clique; the golden allure of wealth and exclusivity, and quickly makes himself indispensable to both Ben and his family. As far as the ending to Martin and Ben's story line I found it abrupt and it leaves you to wonder what actually happened. A whole heap of it is based on my own experiences of fertility and the things some women go through in their quest to become mothers. The admirable energy (and anger) of the writing too often curdles into sneering and this, in turn, creates a constrictive claustrophobia that stops the book reaching for something more resonant – about unrequited gay male love, perhaps, or undead marriages, or even human monstrosity.

We never get to hear the point of view of Ben and I would like to have heard how Ben really felt about having Martin (his little shadow) clinging to him all those years. We come at the story through alternating narrative voices and three different times, coalescing as the novel reaches its climax. There was no clear course of action, but the male consultant thought we “might as well give IVF a go”. I have not read a novel which has as little understanding of the human condition as this one in a long time. Brooks places the epicenter of the Bigfoot war in a high-tech hideaway populated by the kind of people you might find in a Jurassic Park franchise: the schmo who doesn’t know how to do much of anything but tries anyway, the well-intentioned bleeding heart, the know-it-all intellectual who turns out to know the wrong things, the immigrant with a tough backstory and an instinct for survival.Sort of a modern spin on the timeless motif or several timeless motifs and a completely engaging read, read in one day. A gripping story of obsession and betrayal, privilege and hypocrisy, set in the unassailable heart of the British establishment.