Graeme Simsion - The Bset Of Adam Sharp

Rating: 4/5

Review:
Different but still good

I enjoyed much of The Best Of Adam Sharp, but I did have some uncomfortable moments with it.

The first thing to say is that The Rosie Project, this ain't.  This is a much more sober, reflective novel.  There are lighthearted moments and it's well done, but don’t expect a comedy.  The narrator is Adam Sharp, a forty-something, music-loving software engineer in a staid life and relationship in England.  As a young man he had a deep and passionate love affair in Australia with Angelina, a young, beautiful actress.  Out of the blue, she emails him, and we get accounts of both the old affair and present-day developments as old feelings and regrets are rekindled.  To say more about the plot itself would be to reveal more than I would like to have known before starting.

Graeme Simsion writes very well and I found the story involving and compelling enough to make me late for something in order to finish it – always a good sign.  He has some important reflections on what makes a good life and a good relationship, and how we sometimes fail to appreciate the things of real value in both.  I found Adam himself a very convincing portrait of a middle-aged man taking stock of his life so far and experiencing powerful pangs of nostalgia for lost love and youth – fuelled by a fine list of 60s and 70s songs, which is an aspect I enjoyed very much.

There are quite a few sex scenes, which aren't over-explicit and are generally well done.  There is one section, though, which made me very uncomfortable, not because of the sex itself (even though it's somewhat unconventional, shall we say) but because I felt the woman involved had become rather objectified as the prize in a competition between two men.  It may have been Simsion's intention to illustrate the wrongness of this, but it felt more like porn than the genuine human interactions we had been shown in other sex scenes and reading it made me feel rather grubby.

That may just be me, though, and overall I enjoyed this a lot.  It's readable, thoughtful and rather humane and I can recommend it.

(I received an ARC via Netgalley.)