Mr Loverman: From the Booker prize-winning author of Girl, Woman, Other
£1.90
Treat a loved one to this joyful, big-hearted read from Booker Prize-winning novelist Bernardine Evaristo…
‘[Mr Loverman is] Brokeback Mountain with ackee and saltfish and old people’ Dawn French
WINNER OF THE JERWOOD FICTION UNCOVERED PRIZE 2014 and FERRO GRUMLEY AWARD FOR LGBT FICTION 2015
Barrington Jedidiah Walker is seventy-four and leads a double life. Born and bred in Antigua, he’s lived in Hackney since the sixties. A flamboyant, wise-cracking local character with a dapper taste in retro suits and a fondness for quoting Shakespeare, Barrington is a husband, father and grandfather – but he is also secretly homosexual, lovers with his great childhood friend, Morris.
His deeply religious and disappointed wife, Carmel, thinks he sleeps with other women. When their marriage goes into meltdown, Barrington wants to divorce Carmel and live with Morris, but after a lifetime of fear and deception, will he manage to break away?
Mr Loverman is a ground-breaking exploration of Britain’s older Caribbean community, which explodes cultural myths and fallacies and shows the extent of what can happen when people fear the consequences of being true to themselves.
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Additional information
| Publisher | Penguin, 1st edition (29 Aug. 2013) |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| File size | 914 KB |
| Text-to-Speech | Enabled |
| Screen Reader | Supported |
| Enhanced typesetting | Enabled |
| X-Ray | Not Enabled |
| Word Wise | Enabled |
| Sticky notes | On Kindle Scribe |
| Print length | 314 pages |
by DaisyReadsLots
#37 of 2020 is Mr Loverman by Bernadine Evaristo. I didn’t enjoy this quite as much as Girl, Woman, Other, but it was entertaining, nevertheless. Barrington Jedidah Walker is a closeted 74-year-old man from Antigua and has been married to Carmel for over 50 years. They have two daughters. Carmel hasn’t been the perfect wife and he certainly hasn’t been the perfect husband. Barrington has been having an affair with his friend, Morris since they were 14 years old. However, Barrington has also had other liaisons with men in graveyards and on Clapham Common. When his wife goes back to Antigua to see her dying father, Barrington decides that on her return, he will tell her their marriage is over and go to live with Morris. However, events take over when his grandson, Daniel comes to stay (these are the best scenes in the book, in my opinion) and when Carmel decides to visit Odette, Morris’s ex-wife, who knows Barrington and Morris’s secret, having once caught them in flagrante delicto. This is a humorous book, but there are also poignant moments. At first it is a little difficult to get on with the Caribbean patois, but it’s all part of Barrington’s character and adds to the humour.
by Aoife
When Barry finally resolves to tell his wife Carmel that after 50 years of marriage, he’s ready for a divorce so he can truly be himself – a gay man who has been in a secret relationship with his best friend since they were teenagers – he has a lot of things to think about. Can he truly be brave enough to risk everything and be out and proud?
This was a sweet book with a lot of funny moments in it, as well as some fantastic moments fo reflection. Barry is definitely a a character and a half, and he’s someone if you’d met on the street and had a 5 minute chat, you’d still remember him years later. Definitely one of a kind. There were moments in this book when I loved him and cheered him on as he finally stood up and declared his love for Morris, and there were other times he made me cringe as he revealed his old-fashioned, misogynistic views. There were times his view points were actually quite funny but also so problematic at the same time.
I also really loved Carmel’s POV in this as it’s such an important one to have. While Barry has lived a life of fear because of his sexuality, he had great moments of love and a one true romance and one of a kind love. Carmel led a life of disappointment and loneliness and I do understand some of the things she feels, as she definitely was not treated right at all. I do think Carmel and Barry had a fairly horrid family altogether between Donna and Daniel (could not even imagine letting people into my grandad’s house and them smashing my granny’s things. The actual horror of it!), and while Maxine was okay, she was still a 40-year-old woman getting hand outs from her OAP dad.
The atmosphere and humour in this sold it to me for sure though it wasn’t quite the engrossing, completely heart-warming read that I thought it would be.
by 1st renassance
From the book cover (I had the one with a picture of a mature man) you would be forgiven for thinking that Mr Loverman recounts the sexual indiscretions of a stereotypical heterosexual alpha male in his twilight years. The novel does indeed tell the story a love triangle, but one in which the protagonist Barry is a closeted homosexual, married to his Antiguan compatriot Carmel and with two grown up kids, but in a relationship with Morris, his lover of some 50 years.
Evaristo captures a truth of long-term relationships by depicting Barry and Morris as having grown old together – reading each other’s minds, pre-empting each other’s words and complementing each other (a la good cop/ bad cop) in delicate social situations. What I like most about the novel is Barry’s internal sardonic dialogue e.g. when his Maxine daughter berates him for offending one of Carmel’s church friends, by saying ‘You are this close to losing her.’ Barry, whose intention it is to come out to Carmel, ‘soliloquises’: ‘I don’t even need to look at Morris to know we sharing the irony.’
Amongst its other themes, the novel explores how notions of Christian piety leading to self-righteous inertia as Carmel and her church friends spend their time commenting on worldly ills. Until her return from Antigua, where she goes in order to bury her father, Carmel, aware that her marriage has been on the rocks for years, seems resigned to making Barry as miserable as he has made her, rather than seeking a healthier outcome.
Although I loved Barry’s accidental coming out as true to life because of its clumsy and not-quite-as- planned outburst, Barry’s younger daughter’s reaction of inviting him to a gay spot before he has even come out to her mother is not credible, and the depiction of her gay friends is disappointingly lacking in depth. Overall though the book is worth a read and the use of patois by the older characters brings the words on the pages to life.
by Mr A Opong-Nyantekyi
It isn’t often that you’ll come across a book that will make you laugh, cry, and think in equal measure.