Going Loco (BBC Radio 4) Cassette

Going Loco is a sinister comic novel with the courage of its sardonic convictions: variations on the theme of twins, shadow doubles and cloning come together in a shifting cloud of entertaining uncertainties. Belinda is already leading a double life--her books about ponies and gymkhanas are a diversion from her serious study of doppelgangers--when the charming and endlessly self-reinventing Linda turns up in her life. Linda starts off as the cleaner of slatternly Belinda's dreams, but soon finds other bits of Belinda's life to move in on. Belinda's actress best friend Maggie, meanwhile, is horribly confused by identical twins in spite of having appeared in Shakespeare's comedies. Investigative journalists prowl around suspecting that Belinda's geneticist husband is a clone of himself, whereas the truth is even more gothic and bizarre. This starts as a comedy of life among the suburban intelligentsia and progressively shifts its tone into a far darker kind of farce--there is an unsparing quality to its humour, which indicates a savagery about the interruptions of city life, which the author of Eats, Shoots & Leaves normally reserves for misplaced apostrophes.--Roz KaveneyRead More