The Boys are Back in Town Book

After Simon Carr's wife Susie finally succumbed to cancers dogged enough to defeat even her fiery spirit, he was left to bring up two sons in a domestic set-up he describes as "free-range" and visiting mothers preferred to call "semi-feral". This account of the rocky path of the lone carer is both moving and hilarious. The "Lost Boys" homestead constitutes a socially anomalous enterprise: a domestic world almost completely devoid of female influence. Carr's daringly innovative strategy could be summed up as "least resistance parenting"; where the golden rule is simply that there are as few rules as possible. But whilst his discoveries expose the often-risible rules that underlie some of our fundamental parenting habits, he also recounts his failures with unflinching honesty. Carr manages to trace the familiar territory of the gender divide without succumbing to the now familiar polarity of writers such as Helen Fielding and Nick Hornby. But despite the originality, emotional honesty and wit that set him apart from the platitude peddlers (although to be fair he does still sling the odd whopper into the pot), his achievement is to be as highly entertaining and readable as the best of them. --Rebecca JohnsonRead More