Joy by Jonathan Lee: A Lawyer's Life

Jonathan Lee: Strong sophomore

Joy is Jonathan Lee's second novel, following on from Who is Mr Satoshi?, which saw an agoraphobic searching for clues in a cache of lost letters. Alienation was the order of the day; here, in Joy, the characters each inhabit their own peculiar bubble, but are connected in complex - and often devastating - ways.

Lee evokes the predatory, semi-psychotic atmosphere of life at a corporate law firm with gleeful vividness. He shows this world from varying perspectives - the titular Joy, a solicitor about to be "made up" (how significant those two little words sound) to partner, and who has decided that she wants to kill herself; Peter, a man with a selection of chips on his shoulder and an active sex life; Barbara, the secretary, complete with hip-problems and dreams of America; Dennis, Joy's rambling, professorial, older husband; and Sam, the obsessive compulsive gym attendant who likes counting and covertly watching his colleague, Jack.

Structurally, the book follows Joy in the third person as she goes about her last day, remembering the things that led to her decision - a lost nephew features prominently, as do the suicide of her father, her husband's deviant sex life, and the overwhelming stress levels of her job (defending an unscrupulous chicken factory). This main narrative is interspersed with sections of monologue, told to the unseen Dr Odd as the characters deal with Joy's fall (or jump).

Lee's writing is clear, as if lit by the fluorescent, constant lights of a law firm, and the darkness of his subject is pricked by little dots of often surreal humour - a lizard, a solicitor who likes to unzip under his desk. Paradoxically, it suggests that law firms have very little to do with truth - all the characters cloak themselves and each other in some way. Lee is an escaped lawyer himself, and the main thrust of the book concerns the deadening, stultifying effects of repetitive action whose only reward (and rare at that) is material. (There's a particularly effective "Make Law Fun" day at the office.) If the catalogue of horrors that beset Joy seem a little stretched, then it seems to work as a metaphor for the way that that sort of life can really cut you off from your family - talking to your children on speakerphone, seeing your partner once a week - and, crucially, from yourself.

This is a well-wrought, compelling novel that addresses the way we deal with work in an engaging and intelligent fashion. Lee is a fine temperature-taker of our psyches, and this book confirms his talents.

Books of the Year, Day Five: Fiction

 Hello there, and welcome to the thrilling final installment of my books of the year - it's time for fiction! Hurrah! A good year, all in all, Booker mishaps aside, I'd say. It was also a good year for novels by my contemporaries - there was Ivo Stourton's slick The Book Lover's Tale; Anna Stothard's warm and vivid The Pink Hotel, and Jonathan Lee's inventive and accomplished Who is Mr Satoshi?, not to mention Leo Benedictus' post-modern The Afterparty.

1. At Last by Edward St Aubyn

Beware the teeny martini

The latest (and possibly final) book in St Aubyn's acidic Patrick Melrose series, this elegantly skewers the super-rich, and shows a deeply troubled man moving towards peace. There's a fabulous cast of grotesques: Nancy, who, though richer than Croesus, lies and steals and constantly bemoans her fate; Nicholas, a flamboyant and viperish socialite; and the mad drunk Fleur. Patrick seems almost sane by comparison. There are some brilliantly witty vignettes, too, including one about a Grand Duke who drank 20 martinis every day before lunch, which, I have decided, will be my New Year's Resolution. Cheers!

2. The Tragedy of Arthur by Arthur Phillips

King Arthur: Real?

There are layers upon layers at work in this dazzling novel; it centres around a 'lost' Shakespeare play about King Arthur (itself based on Holinshead), which the author's father may or may not have forged whilst in prison. The book takes the form of an introduction to this play (which you must read first, and you will appreciate the beauty of Phillips' - I mean Shakespeare's - efforts), in which Phillips attempts to tell the story of his life and the events surrounding the play. The reader never finds out whether, within the context of the book, the play is real or not - it's totally fascinating.

3 The London Train by Tessa Hadley

What a novel should be - well-observed, beautifully written, surprising, funny and moving, this diptych shows two marriages in disrepair. Hadley's prose is filled with light; her eyes are keen, and her heart is clearly warm and open. 

4. My Former Heart by Cressida Connolly

A Parrot. Possibly psychotic.

Connolly's debut novel, about the loves and lives of three generations of women. Lilting, luminous prose and a deep understanding of human nature combine to make a polished gem. And there's a delightfully insane parrot called Birdle, as well as some lesbians, if you like that sort of thing.

5. Gods without Men by Hari Kunzru

A very involving tale whose themes and plots bounce around like echoes in a cave, involving the consequences of an autistic boy going missing in the desert. His parents are hounded; their lives interconnect with many other tales of strange disappearances, aliens and angels. Kunzru is a superbly strong writer, and this book won't disappoint.

6. The Champion by Tim Binding

This funny and highly acute satire of middle English life was somewhat overlooked this year; I highly recommend its tale of a Kent boy done good who wreaks havoc on his home town, to the detriment of its professional classes, it's full of insight and wit.

7. Ragnarok by A S Byatt

A numinous and powerful retelling of the myths of Asgard and the ends of the gods, it also works as part memoir and part ecological warning. More of a between novels stopgap, it's still worth reading to watch a master of prose at work.

8. By Nightfall by Michael Cunningham

A married middle aged man falls in love with a beautiful young man; Cunningham perceptively and feelingly dissects the fallout of despair.

9. A Kind Man by Susan Hill

Taut and tense, this tale of the miraculous seeping into the everyday brings with it wisdom and strength. 

10. Ransom by David Malouf and The Lost Books of the Odyssey by Zachary Mason

These both came out last year but they are marvellous: Malouf retells the last book of the Iliad, delving into the concept of ransom - Priam himself was ransomed as a boy, and he gained his name from that - it's a beautiful, eerie, poetical work. Mason's is dreamlike - he relates, in kaleidoscope fashion, different versions of the Odyssey; in which the latter's identity is subsumed; where Ariadne becomes Calypso; where Achilles is a robot. It's great fun.

11. The Hunter by Julia Leigh

Leigh's Disquiet  was a brittle, sharp, poised thing, like an arrow; this is her first novel, based around a man's search for the last Tasmanian tiger. It's just as fluid and elegant as her second, and I can't wait for her next.

So a Happy New Book Year to you all, and I look forward to seeing you in 2012. Now, another martini? 

A Jaunt to Japan: Who is Mr Satoshi? by Jonathan Lee: review

This is Mr Lee

Jonathan Lee's debut novel (I attended the launch party last year but have, slightly shamefully, only got round to reading it now as the paperback comes out, which seems to be happening increasingly these days) is an intriguing and accomplished piece of work, longlisted for the Desmond Elliot Prize. It concerns loss, love and the desperate human need for companionship, played out against a backdrop of sushi restaurants and electronic lavatories.

Foss (his surname is 'Fossick') is a middle aged photographer who doesn't take photos any more; he suffers from terrible agoraphobia, having collapsed after the death of his pregnant wife. When his mother dies (in front of him, collapsing in the garden) he discovers a mysterious box with a label addressed to a certain Mr Satoshi. The only trouble is, this personage from his mother's past lives in Japan, and is probably already dead as well.

Lee's protagonist is a convincing creation, tender and thoughtful and timid. As details unfold gradually Foss goes to Japan to fossick (excuse the pun) around for the truth. He meets a pink-haired Japanese college student, who lives in a love hotel with a fat gay ex-sumo wrestler who has a fixation with Dolly Parton, and the two of them embark on a sexless but emotionally confusing relationship as they delve further into the mystery. Was Mr Satoshi a murderer? Why does Foss have to put stamps on his penis? And will he ever get to see the winter daffodils? Who is Mr Satoshi? is a striking first novel, imaginative, intelligent and well-structured. A witty 'trailer' for the book is below.

Read about the party here

A Dashing Duo of Literary Delights: The Desmond Elliott First novel, and The Times Literary Supplement Summer Party

You wait all day for a literary party, and then three come along at once. Last night was positively abounding with them: I only managed to go to two, which is extremely unlike me I know, but you have to draw the line somewhere. The first was the Desmond Elliott First novel award. There was a strong shortlist, including Ned Beauman's Boxer, Beetle; (the longlist had on it both Jonathan Lee's Who is Mr Satoshi? and Leo Benedictus' The Afterparty); the gong was gonged to Anjali Joseph's Saraswati Park, which I haven't read yet, but now most certainly intend to. Edward Stourton was the gonger.  The party was in Fortnum and Masons, which meant the best sausages and mash and excellent champagne, whilst young literary types (including Jonathan Lee, and the dashing brace of Literary Review editors, Tom Fleming and Jonathan Beckman) quaffed ale (well, champagne) and I wish I could have stayed longer but I couldn't because...

... then it was a dash up the dashing Jubilee line to the imposing house of Peter Stothard for the TLS Summer Party. It was in an enormous marquee which covered the back garden. I spotted Ferdinand Mount in a very smart seersucker jacket; although it was eclipsed by a man in a blue and white checked suit who was wearing a bow tie; and a very small old man (who I think was a poet) who was wearing a purple suit that looked like it had been made out of the tablecloths. Miniburgers were the order of the day. Soon-to-be-novelist Cressida Connolly was there; I'm sure there were lots of other lights of the literary scene but I was having too much fun perching on the rim of the pond and trying not to fall in whilst holding a champagne glass. Novelist Anna Stothard was there, of course, and the young editor of the White Review, Jacques Testard. I misplaced my bag, more than once.

I think we went to a pizza restaurant afterwards. The other party was beyond me. It was Hodder Headline, in a church in Marylebone, and apparently there were chicken shish kebabs, but I think mini-burgers are better, don't you?

That Naughty Verres, and A Certain Mr Satoshi

I was reading some Cicero the other day, in particular his superlatively nasty speech against the general Verres, on trial for extortion and being the worst possible governor of Sicily ever. He used to swan around in a litter filled with rose petals, and set up an enormous tent to which were brought various ladies of ill (and worse) repute. Here is a description of one of his parties:

'itaque erant exitus eius modi ut alius inter manus e convivio tamquam e proelio auferretur, alius tamquam occisus relinqueretur, plerique ut fusi sine mente ac sine ullo sensu iacerent.'

Which translates (in rather bad English, but you get the drift) as:

'And so, there were exits (to the party) of such a kind that some would be carried out in the arms (of the other guests) as if from a battle; others would be left as if for dead; most would sprawl on the ground without any idea or sense of where they lay.'

Now I don't know about you, but all this sounds like it could be rather fun. It looks like Verres was heartily enjoining the worship of Bacchus. I wonder if Cicero was just jealous because he never got invited and was too busy writing epic poems about himself?

I attended a party (which didn't end like that) for the launch of Jonathan Lee's Who is Mr Satoshi?, which is his debut novel and looks intriguing. The party was in a pub in Islington; as far as I know nobody was carried out as if from a battle, but it was certainly enormously enjoyable.