Book Review: The Other Hand

It occurred to me recently that I'm way behind with my book reviews. In fact the last one I wrote was in August last year, but having looked back at what's happened since, I've not been as lax as first thought. In September we read The Leopard, which was SO dull I didn't get past chapter four. October we were in the Lakes, so I missed out on reading Brave New World, and I never made it past the starting blocks with November's The Go-Between, which brings us neatly to the first book of this year: The Other Hand by Chris Cleave.

Told from two perspectives - the Nigerian refugee girl "Little Bee" and the British magazine editor Sarah whom she meets while Sarah is on holiday with her husband Andrew - this story epitomises the modern novel for me. As in, it totally fails to live up to either the hype on the cover or the effusively gushing reviews that you will find only a short Google away.

Parts of it are funny, especially the many references to Sarah's young son in his Batman persona, but much of it is dull, or contrived, or hints at possible interesting diversions which are never followed up (an example being the colourful characters who share Little Bee's time in the immigrants' detention centre, but then disappear without trace once she sets off to find Sarah and Andrew).

Sarah is one of the most self-absorbed characters I've ever read, to the point of being a cipher. Everything around her - son, husband, lover, job, house, holiday - is there for the sole purpose of providing her with entertainment and diversion. As you might imagine this rapidly becomes tedious beyond belief, and descends into farce when her lover's job (which he constantly and unbelievably recklessly verges on throwing away) proves to be nothing but a plot device designed to allow Sarah to accompany Little Bee back to Nigeria when she is inevitably deported.

The cover blurb insists that it doesn't want to reveal too much about the book in case it spoils the "truly special story." To my mind, that would be "special" in a way that might make you turn away in discomfited embarrassment, if you know what I mean. It seems most of the book club agreed with me too, since their votes but The Other Hand firmly in 39th place (out of 42 read).