|
|
3.0 out of 5 stars
A Disappointing Misstep, Dec 24 2003
Winning the lottery isn't exactly the freshest or strongest premise for a novel. The main problem is that it's a very predictable scenario-someone wins a ton of cash and their life is changed. The core themes invariably explore how people respond to such windfalls and change. It's such a flimsy narrative framework that it should be no surprise that writers usually apply it to conventional genres like the comic crime caper (Mrs. Million by Pete Hautman and Lucky You by Carl Hiassen), international thriller (The Winner by David Baldacci), mystery (The Rich Detective by HRF Keating and Sub Rosa by Ralph McInerny), and romance (Make Believe Matrimony by Kathern Shaw and Pot of Gold by Judith Michael). Writers willing to employ the premise in a serious work of fiction are rare, and until now only Jim Kokoris (The Rich Part of Life) had taken the challenge.Tulloch's two previous books (The Season Ticket and The Bonny Lad) were extremely good pieces of fiction set in the Gatehead district of Newcastle, and this book continues his chronicling of that ghetto, with several characters reappearing. The central characters are Audrey (a 50ish grandmother and cleaning lady at a local mall), and her husband Ronny (a mild-mannered dreamer and cowboy builder). Like everyone else in their tower block, they struggle to make ends meet and put food on the table for their grandchildren and other neglected local kids. Audrey is a tough matriarch with heart of gold type, and Ronny is as softhearted as they come. This setup is all good and fine, but when they hit it big and win a £3 million jackpot in the lottery, the book starts a long and disappointing slope toward cliché. With the burgeoning of local and national lotteries in the last two decades, the profile of the average hardworking person winning the lottery has become a newspaper staple. Similarly, the tale of the lottery winner whose win ironically brings misery has clearly entered the collective unconscious. So when Audrey and Ronny's win gradually turns sour as weaknesses come to light, jealousies spring to life, and family starts to disintegrate, one keeps waiting for a new twist on the theme, and is disappointed when it never comes. Which is not to say that Tulloch's descriptive powers are any weaker, or that he doesn't tackle it all with his blend of tenderness and poignant humor-but rather to lament his having fallen into the lottery winner story's familiar pattern. Hopefully his next book will see him return to the form of his first two.
|
