Jonathan Harvey is one of the Coronation Street writers and he's also written a few plays and the award-winning TV show Gimme Gimme Gimme.
The Confusion of Karen Carpenter is his second novel (All She Wants being the first one) and is just as sharp and witty as the first.
Karen Carpenter is in her late 30s and has been saddled with not only the name of a famous but dead pop star from the 70s but also with a mother who seems to be having a midlife crisis. Karen is also coping with the sudden departure of her husband, who left a note on the kettle and walked out of her life. Between that, and grieving the loss of a baby several years before that, she's not coping well.
Karen's a teacher. She meets the father of one of her students at his wife's funeral. Is he an unfeeling ladies' man or has she got the wrong end of the stick? She's got a lesbian friend at school and is sure the friend fancies her. Or has she got the wrong end of the stick? It really all falls apart when her husband comes back into her life and we discover why he left in the first place.
The dialogue is fun, witty and sometimes very poignant. The situations are in turn hysterically funny (a Brazilian waxing from hell) and heartbreaking, and everything in between as Karen works her way through the tunnel and finds some hope. It's all you would expect from one of Coronation Street's best writers. (I haven't seen any of his plays, which by all accounts are just as wonderfully written!) I look forward to more from this talented writer.
The Confusion of Karen Carpenter will be available in bookshops and on Amazon.co.uk after August 15 and will be available in Canada by the end of August according to Amazon.ca
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