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EVERY CITY HAS A NOTTING HELL . . . "A spot of extramarital nookie with a close neighbor is one thing. We're all grown-ups here. But selling a rare-to-the-market mid-Victorian house -- not merely a house but our children's ancestral family home -- on a communal garden, the sort of house that a banker would trample over his own grandmother to spend his bonus on -- is another thing entirely. It's wrong." Meet Mimi. Mimi may "have it all" -- the house, the children, the part-time vanity job, the skinny jeans, the feng shui guru -- but life chez Fleming is not as cushy as she'd like (husband Ralph prefers the trout stream to the fast lane). And when Mimi meets Si, the new billionaire on the block, at a sushi party, she soon faces a choice of keeping up or keeping it real. Then there's her best friend Clare, neat-freak garden designer, deep in biopanic about her childlessness with eco-architect husband, Gideon. Clare monitors all illicit activity in the private West London compound, from light adultery to heavy construction, and she is watching Mimi. . . . Notting Hell is a wickedly funny and oh-so-recognizable comedy of manners, filleting life on a communal garden in London. So take your irreplaceable numbered key and enter Lonsdale Gardens, the world of wealthy one-upmanship, where the old-fashioned laws of love still rule among the stainless steel kitchen appliances, cashmere throws, and compassionately produced cups of latte. INCLUDES "Notting Hill for Beginners," a witty guide to the must-haves and must knows of Notting Hill… (more)
User reviews
The story unfolds in a series of alternating narratives recounted
This is not really a novel in which much happens but the descriptions of the excesses of some of Clare's and Mimi's neighbours, and the insights into the competitive acquisitiveness (generally for its own sake) are hugely entertaining. There are some glorious set pieces, including a professionally catered dinner party at the house of the American bankers who are generally acknowledged as the wealthiest inhabitants of the square, and the summer sports event. In many ways it reminded me of John Lanchester's 'Capital' (the book, not the lamentable television adaptation), though without the seething menace that underpinned life on Pepys Road.
Beautifully observed, and delivered with delicious acidity, this was far more entertaining than I had expected, and I am now keen to read its successor volumes.