Man at the helm

Man at the Helm
By Nina Stibbe

I picked up this copy in the library sale because I'd watched and enjoyed Love, Nina, on television. 

It's described as a "wildly comic, brilliantly sharp-eyed novel". Maybe it's me - probably - but I didn't it find it to be such.

It's set in the 1970s and the narrator is a nine-year-old girl, who with her mother and siblings go and live in the country after her father leaves them for his male lover.

When I began reading it I didn't know when it was set and I assumed it was the 1950s because of the style of speaking of the narrator but maybe that's because they were quite a well-to-do family. Brought up proper like. But also with a loose moral compass. 

The older sister decrees they will never be accepted in the village until they get a 'man at the helm' so they draw up a list and organise meetings between their mother and various men, not all of whom are eligible being married.

The ending is satisfactory and unexpected but in many ways the children seem more adult than the grown-ups in their behaviour.

I'm just going to give this ***.