“Things had gone far enough.”

While celebrating his 45th birthday, Eric experiences a minor epiphany as he downs a bottled lager at the local pub. In a mini midlife crisis, Eric decides that what his family really needs is a holiday. Rejecting his loved ones’ requests for a holiday in an exotic location, Eric insists that they spend their hols in a smelly old caravan planted in the old tried-and-true Tralee Carapark and Holiday Centre in Skegness.

The holiday goes horribly wrong right from the start. It begins with a car accident, and ends with … well, you’ll have to read the book to find out how the holiday ends. But in the middle Eric suffers every torment and humiliation known to man. And his family is no help. There’s daughter Sally–”she’s some kind of pious, crazed, religious zealot.” Frisky wife, Kathleen has insatiable demands which leave Eric exhausted and rather relieved when she begins to look elsewhere, and son, Max seems to have reverted to some sort of primordial state. Added to the madness and mayhem are bizarre characters including, Honest Iago–the crooked car dealer/mechanic, a back-stabbing co-worker, crazed, obnoxious caravan park neighbours, a Mozart-obsessed, violent police detective, and a stuttering bingo-caller. After a few weeks with this lot, not even Eric’s prized Joan Crawford book can salvage this holiday.

What We Did on Our Holidays was my introduction to the wonderful world of Geoff Nicholson, and I laughed out loud at many scenes in the book. The scene with the hypnotist was brilliantly funny. That said, however, I have to add that the book really could have been a lot funnier–it came so close–but just missed the mark. One of the major problems is the protagonist’s reactions to the constant humiliation, embarrassment and cuckolding. He just takes it. I realize that Eric’s passivity is essential to the plot, but when awful things happen to Eric, it’s as though he’s an observer–watching some sort of violent crazed tableau working itself out right in front of him. He takes it again and again. He attempts to confront improper behaviour and lack of social standards and is rewarded by violence and humiliation. After a while, it just gets old. Eric’s suppressed reactions are essential to the plot, but episode after episode adds up to unfunniness–and that’s unfortunate.

 “It was for the sake of art.”

Jake works at a copy shop while waiting for an acting role to come along. Then one day, an old acquaintance, the sublime and relatively successful actress, Sacha, walks into the copy shop and Jake’s life changes forever. Sacha, it seems, has an ‘in’ with American director, Dan Ryan. Ryan is directing a film based (loosely) on the life of Errol Flynn. Ryan deftly avoids Jake’s direct questions about a script and states his directing style is “Andy Warhol meets David Lynch meets Peter Greenaway.” Ryan rather surprisingly offers Jake the lead role in The Errol Flynn Movie. Jake is at first overwhelmed at the prospect, but after Ryan inundates Jake with books about Flynn and videos starring Flynn, Jake accepts the role. Ryan tells Jake, “I can absolutely promise you, it’ll be the experience of a lifetime.”

Jake begins filming the directionless epic The Errol Flynn Movie, and it soon becomes abundantly apparent that Ryan is either an avant-garde director making an experimental film or he’s a complete nutter who has no idea what he’s doing.

Jake’s confusion and gut-sense that something is inherently wrong grows as the insanity on the film set grows. Ryan is an intimidating, forceful, dominant personality, and Jake, in contrast is almost formless and uncomfortable in his own skin. As Jake assumes the role of Errol Flynn, a weird osmosis takes place. Ryan tries to groom Jake into his idol–Errol Flynn, and yet Jake feels somewhat inadequate and unconvincing. Ryan seems to identify with Flynn just a little too much, and just which of the two men is more like Flynn is debatable.

British author Geoff Nicholson creates a maniacal, surreal world in this witty, clever, fast-paced novel. Nicholson’s books always seem to focus on some element of obsession. In The Errol Flynn Novel the obsession, is, of course, the actor Errol Flynn. Nicholson shows how an obsession with an idea can eventually ruin your life–if it’s carried to extremes, and Ryan is a man who never does anything halfway. The author cites 7 different books he used as sources for information on Flynn, so I’m sure he did his homework. However, fans who insist on placing Flynn on a pedestal may be appalled by some of the Flynn trivia within these pages. The novel made me laugh out-loud, and it was thoroughly entertaining and unpredictable. The Errol Flynn Novel is another yet enjoyable read from this very funny author who deserves a much bigger audience on this side of the Atlantic.

“Had I ever been so innocent, so pristine?”

In Bedlam Burning Geoff Nicholson’s brilliant thirteenth novel, the protagonist, a handsome but mediocre student, named Michael Smith attends a book-burning party held by Professor Bentley. At the party, Michael meets budding novelist, Gregory Collins. To everyone’s shock, Gregory, a huge, spotty, unattractive lumbering student from Yorkshire, chooses to heave his own unpublished novel into the fire. The inauspicious meeting between Michael and Gregory does not seem destined to shape both these men’s lives, but it does. And the relationship between these two men forms the basis of this funny, intelligent and well-written novel.

Years after the book-burning party, Michael is working in a rare used bookshop when one day he meets Gregory once again. Michael isn’t exactly successful, but he imagines that if anyone is a bigger loser than he is, then surely it is Gregory. During a night out on the town, Michael discovers that Gregory is a schoolteacher and he’s about to have his first novel “The Wax Man” published. When both men are a bit drunk, Gregory suggests that a photo of Michael should appear on the book jacket. According to Gregory, a photo of good-looking Michael will sell books. It’s supposed to be a joke on the literary community, but when Gregory actually goes through with it, Michael is a little uneasy.

This small act of fraud isn’t so easily dismissed. Soon Gregory is invited to a book reading, and Gregory persuades Michael to take his place. There Michael meets the beautiful Alicia, a psychiatrist at the Kincaid Clinic in Brighton. Believing that Michael is Gregory, Alicia offers him a job as a writer-in-residence at the insane asylum, and Alicia’s body seems to promise a lot more besides. Michael doesn’t stop to question why an asylum needs its own writer-in-residence–he’s too busy panting after Alicia to take stock of the peculiarity of the situation. Leaving common sense behind, Michael accepts the job at the clinic.

The Kincaid Clinic is a very strange place, and its inmates are even stranger. The inmates form a motley–and somewhat unwilling–band of students for Michael. Michael soon learns first hand about pyromania, exhibitionism, voyeurism, and the differences between Coprolalia, Coprophilia, and Coprophemia. The Kincaid Clinic is a place in which nothing seems normal, but even taking this into consideration, there’s something seriously odd going on beneath the surface of all this mental illness.

Author Geoff Nicholson handles the plot deftly, and all loose ends are effectively and efficiently tied together with a brilliant synchronicity reminiscent of a Greek drama. Bedlam Burning is one of Nicholson’s best novels. It’s wickedly funny, and if you enjoy it, I also recommend The Errol Flynn Story, The Hollywood Dodo, and Hunters and Gatherers.

“I don’t see why any normal, healthy lad would want to be an artist. Artists, Charlie, what are they? They’re all drunks, or depressives or drug takers or wife-beaters or sexual inverts of one sort or another.”

- Geoff Nicholson, Everything and more : 148.