I am glad you liked it, Mel. It’s gotten some good and bad reviews. I know that Amazon picked it as a best book of the year, and the NY Times seemed to enjoy aspects of it. Perhaps had I not attempted it when I did I would have liked it too. But it will be a while before I try it again, if I ever do.

I finished it (yes, it’s 738 pages long) just earlier today, with the feeling I’d finished putting the top stone in place on one of Pharoah’s pyramids or some other monumental task.

All kidding aside, in fact, I did enjoy it– by the middle of the book, I found myself enjoying following the exploits, dramas and traumas of the members of the two middle class families Hensher so diligently and painstakingly portrays, both families representative, in a middle-class way of northern England from the period of the 1970s through the 1990s.

Yes, as (professional) reviewers of the book have pointed out, nothing too eventful happens, but yet, as time passes, you become quite comfortable with the characters, evening caring for them (well, some of them, at least), a measure, to my way of thinking, of how successful the author has been in fleshing out his book.

I’d even go so far to say I’d rate The Northern Clemency higher than #11 on the 2008 Booker long list.

To see other reviews, you may want to Google in the name of the novel on The New York Times Web site. The book was reviewed there twice, I believe, once in a weekday edition and another time in the Sunday Book Review section.

MEL

And John, I don’t think we grew out of Irving — I think he stopped writing good books. He used to be my wife’s favorite novelist and she gave up on him about five novels ago. I share your trepidation about revisiting him — there seems to be some risk in destroying what are fond memories. I do find it interesting that his early short minor novels (the ones I call the wrestling novels) are higher up the chapters-indigo list for him that his more recent books.