Man and BoyThe book takes place in the late 90’s in London, England. A few months before his 30th birthday, Harry was living the American dream. He had a beautiful wife named Gina, a luxurious red MGF sports car that average men dreamt of having, he was a successful TV producer and had his own Live TV show and to top it all off he had an adorable 4 year old boy named Pat. Till now everything was perfect for Harry; he had everything a man wanted. Everything changed one night when Harry unknowingly abolished everything. One night on his TV show, they brought in a new guest and things didn’t go the way Harry and his staff wanted it to. This incident gave Harry a lot of work stress which eventually led to a one night stand between Harry and his co-worker Siobhan. This changed everything for Harry, Gina found out and decided to walk out on Harry leaving him with the 4 year old Pat. Gina shifted back to Japan in hopes to become a Bank Translator. It gets worse for Harry as he loses his job and becomes an unemployed single parent. Doing everything he can to raise Pat Harry has to deal with his wife’s divorce request and fight for the custody of Pat. When Gina returns from Japan, Harry and Gina agree that after Gina settles in Japan, Pat will be sent to live with his mother. Slowly everything comes together for Harry; he meets a new lady named Cyd and decided to marry her. He got a new job as TV producer for another company and managed his time between working and spending time with Pat. tOne of the major themes represented within this book has to be the theme of love. It doesn’t have to be necessarily the love between man and women; in this case it’s father and son. I really enjoyed how the novel Man and Boy portrays this theme in a very detailed manner when Harry is left alone to take care of his Pat. The father son relationship grows as Harry does everything he can to raise his child. The author was very powerful while describing the setting and characters in the first few chapters. The amount of detail put in the novel made the readers experience the story firsthand. In my opinion a story that has a great description of the settings and characters establishes its greatness from the first few chapters. Man and Boy had curiosity in almost every chapter, as the reader I was excited, curious and stayed glued to my seat wanting to know what happened in the next page. tAlthough there are a lot of positive influences in this novel, there are also negatives which shouldn’t be ignored such as the ending being very fairy tale like and fake; also events in this novel happened suddenly. Normally to average humans it would take them time to get into another relationship after divorce, however Harry met a new lady and got married within a few months of his break up. This book makes it out to seem that in reality there is always a happy ending. However sometimes things don’t end up in a fairy tale style ending. tMan and Boy is a novel with a roller-coaster of emotions, describing feelings and mental thought process in an extraordinary way. The novel showcases the importance of strength within a relationship and the importance of a relationship. This novel appealed to me because of all the drama, romance and plot twists it had stored within it. The novel started of very boring and randomly took a twist making it very interesting. Personally I was satisfied with this book. If you are interested in a novel with romance, corruption, plot twists and drama, this novel will be a good read for you.
Tony Parsons is a brand new author for me. I discovered this book earlier in the year and finally decided to pick it up. It felt like a contemporary to me. This was not a blow me away, wow me book by any means but it was so well told, and so heart felt. This author can definitely tug on the readers heart strings. And if you don't feel something while you read this book then you need to turn your emotions on.Set in England you have this story of a beautiful family, Gina, Harry and their 4 year old son, Pat. Harry, who is turning 30, makes one big mistake and that it all it takes to drastically change all their lives and their families lives. Harry and his family try their best to heal from the mistake and so this story goes.I loved the characters in this story they were so vivid in my mind. I could picture each one of them. So many different types of people, eccentric, down to earth, wild and crazy. And I think I feel in love with most of them. I loved watching the growth of our main character Harry. You could not help but love who he is and who he becomes as well. I could not really pick out an antagonist as they all had their own issues and struggles to overcome. This story was definitely character driven rather than plot driven, which worked well. The main plot was the one that counted the most and I thought it was very well written.I can recommend this book to those who love a great heart engaging contemporary story with vivid characters and a beautiful plot line. It was truly engaging and irresistible to read. I thought though, that it could have had just a little bit more to it. So I decided to rate this a 3.5 stars.
What do You think about Man And Boy (2002)?
This book. wow. not the usual book i'd go for but I don't really know if you can put this book into a genre. I picked this up randomly and turned to the first page and all I can see was the word fuck repeatedly and knew I had to buy it and what a purchase. I thoroughly enjoyed this book. The swearing for one, Harry did not hold back. The views of Harry were impeccably similar to my own, I could relate to this character in a cynical way. The choice of words, sentences, quotes spoken by each character just really helped to build up the story. the plot of the story was unordinary in which I liked, it helped me to view the situation in different ways and to empathise with the main character. I understood things in a way I wouldn't before.
—Courtney
I've always been a fan of kitchen sink dramas: aka. 'Saturday Night & Sunday Morning.' 'Cathy Come Home.' A Taste Of Honey.' 'Look Back In Anger.' etc, I like the gritty social realism. I've also been a long time fan of writer Tony Parsons. He has that same earthy, 'call a spade a bloody spade' quality that is missing from too much of our modern air kissing Z list celebrity world. So when I saw his book, 'Man And Boy' in my local Acorns charity shop for £1 it was a no brainer. It is the best £1 I've spent in a long time - apart from seeing that the book is fifteen years old ! Surely not ?But it has aged well and didn't let me down. His descriptions of family life and growing up in the 60s in working class England is my world. Sadly, the adult mess that unfolds is the modern world personified. Wanting it all, never realising that what you have in your hand is the happinness you dreamed of as a kid. Losing site of the real world and chasing the greener grass that doesn't existThis book is funny, sad, touching, melancholy, bitter. All human life on the page.Tony Parsons has an all seeing eye that recognises the human condition and writes it into a page turner of a book. I would have given it 5 stars but there is just a little too much bad language for my own taste. I suppose that too is the modern world.In the past year, my own writing has been compared to Dickens (really) Dahl and C.S.Lewis I'd be extremely happy if one day someone compared me to Tony Parsons.Highly recommended.... if you haven't read it fifteen years ago.NB. Many years ago I had cause to write to Tony Parsons after something he'd written in his newspaper column. (I can't even remember what.) Several weeks later I got a charming hand written reply on a holiday postcard. It looked as though he'd interrupted his holiday to respond to a stranger. How many 'celebs' would do that ? He talks the talk and walks the walk.
—John Read
For some reason I simply couldn't relate to the protagonist in this story. Perhaps because he is male? A father? An adulterer? There were points in the book where I was downright frustrated with this character. Not only does he cheat on his wife, he then whines about how she treats him because of his infidelity. That being said the last few pages of the book were beautifully written. Tony Parsons does have a way with his words. While I wouldn't go so far as to say that I "cried five times and laughed out loud four", Parsons does depict beautifully a son's adulation of his father and a father's adoration of his son.
—Bindiya
