Women behaving badly

Published on Saturday 26 July 2008 15:44

BOOK review

MY BEST FRIEND HAS ISSUES

Laura Marney

Transworld Publishers (Black Swan), 7.99

IF THE idea of "Tartan-chic-lit" – complete with Weegie speak – set in Barcelona, served with spicy chorizo and oodles of sex, and featuring a psychotic American heiress and a cute litter of puppies, sets your teeth on edge, you should probably read no further. But since Marney's earlier books were bestsellers, this too may find an audience.

Ugly duckling turned green-eyed beauty Alison from Cumbernauld arrives in Barcelona to teach English and break away from the past after a near fatal bout of glandular fever. While flat-hunting in one of the seedier parts of the city, she stumbles over a bloody corpse in a stairwell. Terrified, she runs into the street and is rescued by an American girl, Chloe: cue the start of a plot that has as much sparkle as a flat cerveza.

Living in Chloe's penthouse and off her substantial allowance, Alison emulates her friend's lifestyle: pulling guapos, sniffing cocaine and smoking joints. Both have enough "issues" to fill several psychiatrists' notebooks, and are so "f***** up and scared" that matters rapidly spiral out of control.

Chloe's vengeful prank on Alison's former schoolmates Lisa and Lauren, which involves leaving them drunk, drugged and naked on the beach, is so gratuitously spiteful that it failed to raise even the ghost of a giggle. Unlike Alison's sex life, the plot cranks up to a climax as her panic attacks worsen and she finally reveals the secret of her past, just as the whole sham of their lives crumbles to dust – in more ways than one.

The isolation of the individual, particularly women, in society seems to be a key theme in Marney's writing. Here, however, both girls remain too rigidly manipulated by the author for any real credibility. Alison arrives in Barcelona as a somewhat implausible virgin, and much of the dramatic tension throughout the book hinges on her vacillating attempts to remedy this state of affairs in a crescendo of improbable situations and sexual perversion.

The solution is so unexpected that Marney can at least take credit for a surprise ending. For all the book's shortcomings, however, as a mirror of social malaise many aspects seem sadly all too accurate.

Laura Marney, EIBF, August 10, 8.30pm