Happy new year from Melanie Gay

I do not rate New Year’s Eve at all and am happy to spend the evening curled up with a good book. I finally ditched Amos Oz’s A Tale of Love and Darkness with its extended and tedious description of his family. Enough already. I began the sequel to Morvern Callar by Alan Warner, These Demented Lands, which I found a bit disconnected from the reader. I was startled and a tad upset, though not totally surprised, that the feisty young woman became an international call girl. I read a lurid description  of a stay at a French villa as guest of Milt in which she was obliged to have sex in every room, including the nursery, where she wore crotchless white frillies. The change of tone was, I thought, a master stroke – till I realised my kindle had taken me to a totally different book Diary of A Jetsetting Call Girl by Tracy Quan.