(Reviewed by JD Jung
)
“Do all the lovely memories fade first?
Do all the faces of the people you held dearest disappear…and all the horrible ones stay nailed into your skull?”
When I was asked to review The Old Man, marketed as “dark British pub humour,” I wondered whether an urban American like me would be the right audience. The answer is ‘yes’, and that’s maybe because there is so much more.
Our narrator, Toni, spends most of his days at the pub and the park, drinking. He lost his wife to cancer, and he desperately tries to relive moments with her and remember her face. He’s estranged from his son, a regret that weighs heavily on him. When his wife died, his happiness went with her, and he doesn’t consider his current existence to be truly living. Now, alcohol has become his closest companion.
There is plenty of sadness and regret in Toni’s life, but The Old Man also delivers a lot of hilarious moments, particularly his interactions with friends and his ongoing battles with his enemies: pigeons that seem determined to poop on his car and just about everything else.
In between all of this are the tender moments that reveal Toni’s humanity, especially when he comforts a grieving child in the park. Beneath the crude humor lies a vulnerable man struggling with loneliness, loss, and the consequences of his choices. The author has managed to balance these tones of the story very well.
At under 200 pages, this entertaining and unexpectedly moving book is well worth a read—even for an American who isn’t familiar with British pub culture.