"When tomorrow night was over she’d laugh at herself. It wouldn’t be as bad as she imagined. Her parents would meet Joe’s mother for the first time. They’d all eat dinner together at her house in Primrose Hill and discuss wedding plans and make polite conversation. Big deal."
The narrator here is penetrating into the thoughts of the novel’s protagonist, a 26-year-old woman named Yasmin. These thoughts are the kind of that reflect late-stage denial within the context of intensifying anxiety. Or, put another way, this is the kind of thing one might actually voice out loud while alone in a room as a sort of ritualistic incantatory prayer. In terms of a comparable simile, it is not completely unlike whistling as walking past a graveyard. Yasmin may be confidently asserting to herself that by late tomorrow evening she’ll be laughing over how much she let this big event bother her, but that is simply a case of pure undiluted bravado.
“Only the frivolous and the foolish waste their time with synthetic stories—plots, characters, motives, denouements!”
The character of David Cavendish is not a major figure in the novel in terms of actual page time. He certainly makes his limited time in the spotlight felt, however. He is a white, male, middle-class author still writing novels in age in which—at least according to Harriet Sangster—the novel is dead. In other words, he is a victim of cancel culture twice over: he has been canceled due to the end of patriarchy and his mode of expression has been canceled as well. At least, that is, according to Harriet. One gets the distinct impression that there is another level of reality going on with Cavendish. This quote which is just the latest in a string of pronouncements about what is or is not suitable material for writing about seems be curiously close to describing the very novel in which David Cavendish is a character. This is a novel packed with multiple characters, assorted subplots, a variety of different motivations behind the various actions, and a host of climactic moments followed by denouements designed the facilitate the reader into the next subplot leading to the next climax. It seems entirely possible this fictional character has a real-life doppelganger somewhere who spouted similar literary criticism which motivated, at least partly, this very novel.
“I guess your parents had an arranged marriage–all planned by their own parents so it was the opposite of random for them. I mean, no chance encounters, no thunderbolts.”
Pepperdine is not Joe, of course. He is an old colleague with whom Yasmin has a casually complicated relationship, but he certainly comes in handy when for a little revenge sex. This is a novel not just about the role of fiction in modern life, but the role of fiction in life. A question is posed at one point to a character by another who demands to know what exactly qualifies as the difference between creative writing and lying. It is a certainly a question worthy of discussion because all the multiple characters pursuing multiple subplots have motives that are not always entirely clear. In other words, this is a novel with a narrative engine fueled by lies, secrets, and deceptions. Some of these deceptions are relatively minor and rather quickly discovered while others maintain their integrity for decades before the revelation of the truth causes them to crumble. The subject of his quick back and forth between Pepperdine and Yasmin may just possibly be an example of one of these examples of deceit. The question is whether Pepperdine is being deceitful regarding what he knows about the marriage of Yasmin’s parents whether Yasmin is being honest. Of course, there is always the possibility that the deceit in this particular situation the result of someone else entirely who is not even in the room during this conversation. One thing is absolutely true regarding the exchange quoted above: somebody is lying about something.
