The novel deals with two families connected by the friendship of their fathers which goes back to World War II. Archie Jones, who in the opening pages attempted suicide, soon after meets and marries a girl less than half his age, Clara Bowden. She's a girl of Jamaican extraction raised as a Jehovah's Witness described, when she enters the story, as having no upper teeth. This is how she sees her husband three months after the wedding:
No white knight, then, this Archibald Jones. No aims, no hopes, no ambitions. A man whose greatest pleasures were English breakfasts and DIY. A dull man.
Unfortunately, I think that's pretty accurate--about all the characters: Dull. Which isn't entirely true of Smith's voice. There is a sense of humor evident--but not a warm one, or even an angry, biting one. More that of someone who enjoys taking people down several pegs, undermining her own characters. I just couldn't connect to any of them--they seemed to range from "dull" to repellent.
A turning point for me was the chapter of flashback about Archie and his friend Samad Iqbal during World War II about 100 pages in. Both are involved in something heinous for trite reasons. I limped on dozens of pages beyond that point, but stopped when I realized I just couldn't care why they did it or anything else. I just wanted out. I didn't want to spend time with these people.
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