Rónán Hession – Leonard and Hungry Paul

I had no recollection that I had read this book before.

Up until the moment where the Chamber of Commerce competition is mentioned I read it as a wholly new experience. Even when I remembered the incident with the box of chocolates, the words around it did not seem familiar. So, what does that say about the book?

Anne read it just before me on the Kindle and primed me because she kept putting it down and then forcing herself to pick it up as we had to read it for our book club.

‘It’s not a bad read,’ she said, ‘it’s just that nothing much happens.’

If I had picked the book up without that warning, then I think I would have struggled a little bit more. In the end I read it in a couple of days, because it is a short book, because the book club was looming and because I think I quite liked it all in all.

Leonard and Paul (there is no reason given as to why he is called Hungry Paul) are two men in their thirties who are friends. They are each other’s only real friend, but the friendship is a warm, safe gentle one where neither feels judged or beholden. Leonard is the only child of only-child parents. He has been raised by his mother, ‘his father having died tragically in childbirth’, and the book opens with the peaceful but unexpected death of his mother in her sleep.

Paul, on the other hand has both his parents lovingly still in the world with him alongside a more societally adapted older sister, Grace. Paul seems to have a zen-like contentment with his lot, of living at home with his parents still in a bedroom that has barely changed since he was a child. He has an occasional job as a postman and has very recently taken up Judo which is very much outside his regular purview, and the sensei has advised him not to use his white fluffy bathrobe and pyjama bottoms as his ‘gi’.

His sister, Grace is frustrated by Paul’s lack of independence. She is also pushing her parents to go on nice big holidays while they still can, and she worries about the future where the parent-sitting will, she thinks, fall on her shoulders as Paul does not show any signs of being able to take care of himself, let alone his parents. This is the sole bit of conflict in the book, apart from a few moments when Leonard might or might not have screwed up a date. 

Anne was right. Nothing much does happen.

And yet, I did quite find myself enjoying it. Enjoying the depiction of an unusual male heterosexual friendship, enjoying the small acts of kindness and love that scatter the book, enjoying the gentle humour, enjoying the author occasionally playing with our expectations of what we expect from a book.

I think if I were to know Paul in real life, he would frustrate the heck out of me. I’d have to be on team Grace on that score. But as characters in this book, he, and Leonard, and virtually everybody else, are all nice people. They are kind and want the best for each other. With that spirit, the book sometimes tries a bit too hard to be profound. I wasn’t all that keen on the two big speeches from the dad (to Grace about what marriage is) and from Paul (to Grace about what his purpose in the family is). But perhaps I’m a tad too cynical.

The book club overall did enjoy the read. Even Anne said that she didn’t dislike it. We did have a bit of our own drama in the evening, when we found a stray auburn cocker spaniel. She’d been very well looked after so we assumed she must have taken fright to something and bolted. She was friendly, but a tad distressed that we weren’t her family. Anne was all set to adopt her whereas I considered looking up dog shelters. Trish, our neighbour and fellow book club member had some friends who offered to walk her, just to see if she recognised any house, while we carried on with our discussion. It had given us more drama than the book in its entirety and will probably stick in my mind for longer.

The book has apparently been turned into a television series that will soon be aired on the BBC. I will watch it, just to see what they do with the non-story. It is intriguing as to how it will be depicted. 

The dog, by the way, is called Belle and did find her family during this walk. They were all looking for her, just a couple of streets down.