Man at the Helm
The hilarious debut novel from one of Britain’s wittiest writers
Author: Nina Stibbe Series: The Lizzie Vogel Series
When their parents split up nine-year-old Lizzie Vogel, her sister and brother move with their mother to a slightly hostile village in the English countryside.
My sister and I and our little brother were born into a very good situation and apart from the odd new thing life was humdrum and comfortable until an evening in 1970 when my mother listened in to my father's phone call and ended up blowing her nose on a tea towel - a thing she'd only have done in an absolute emergency.
Paperback
PRODUCT INFORMATION
Summary
When their parents split up nine-year-old Lizzie Vogel, her sister and brother move with their mother to a slightly hostile village in the English countryside.
My sister and I and our little brother were born into a very good situation and apart from the odd new thing life was humdrum and comfortable until an evening in 1970 when my mother listened in to my father's phone call and ended up blowing her nose on a tea towel - a thing she'd only have done in an absolute emergency.
Description
The funniest paperback of the year from Britain's best new comic novelistMeet Lizzie Vogel, 9.Lizzie is concerned about her newly divorcee mother - thirty-one years old, with three young children and a Labrador in a hostile village in the English countryside.It isn't that having a husband is good, but in 1970s rural Leicestershire, not having one is bad. The women in the village think Lizzie's mother is after their husbands and no one will let the children into the Brownies. And so Lizzie and her sister embark on a misguided campaign to find a new Man at the Helm.
Awards
Short-listed for Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize 2015
Critic Reviews
“I can't remember a book that made me laugh more . . . Man at the Helm is a winner - it even trumps Love, Nina”
I can't remember a book that made me laugh more . . . Man at the Helm is a winner - it even trumps Love, Nina Observer
A wicked anatomising of a dysfunctional family . . . Buoyantly comic: farcical yet tender, rude with a forgiving sweetness Spectator
Read it and be charmed. Just the right mixture of childhood innocence and incredulity for the necessary deadpan delivery of Stibbe's particular brand of comedy Independent
All hail a book that's funny! -- Barbara Trapido
[A] joyous read, full of wit and charm . . . I am already longing for Nina Stibbe's next book Express
A beguilingly comic blend of naivety and precociousness Sunday Times
Within a few pages I was completely caught up in the lives of Lizzie and her family . . . I couldn't have loved it more -- Lisa Jewell
Fantastic. Comical, moving and brilliantly evocative of British childhood Glamour
This book is very, very funny. Stibbe has a fine eye for absurdity, and her writing has an unforced charm. [And] there is real darkness here, which makes the humour shimmer all the more Independent on Sunday
Lizzie's voice is convincingly childlike but also confidently witty . . . What is most moving here - and what makes the book most similar to Love, Nina - is its celebration of the happiness possible within the family. Stibbe's feat is to remain unsentimentally barbed while subtly and triumphantly demonstrating the value of the kind of understated love found within the strangest and least obviously functional families Telegraph
Fans of Love, Nina will not be disappointed. Amusing, the writing is never less than accomplished Daily Mail
This densely populated coming-of-age story (for both mother and children) has retained and even expanded on Stibbe's signature antic charm ... The appeal of Stibbe's novel lies less in plotting than in the way she shades a sequence of comic vignettes with seriously sad undertones. It's not too much of a stretch to conclude that Man at the Helm, with its jauntily matter-of-fact social satire, wouldn't be out of place on the same shelf as Cold Comfort Farm and I Capture the Castle New York Times
About the Author
Nina Stibbe was born in Leicester. She is the author of two works of non-fiction - Love, Nina and An Almost Perfect Christmas - and three previous novels- Man at the Helm, Paradise Lodge, and Reasons to be Cheerful, which is the only novel to have won both the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Comic Fiction and the Comedy Women in Print Award. Love, Nina won Non-Fiction Book of the Year and was adapted by Nick Hornby into a BBC TV series. Nina Stibbe lives in Cornwall.
Back Cover
'A beguilingly comic blend of naivety and precociousness' Sunday Times When their parents split up nine-year-old Lizzie Vogel, her sister and brother move with their mother to a slightly hostile village in the English countryside. Their mother immediately takes to drinking and compulsive playwriting - none of which impresses villagers already deeply suspicious of an attractive divorce. Desperate to fit in, Lizzie and her sister hatch a plan: secretly invite any suitable (and even unsuitable) men to meet (and hopefully marry) their mother . . . 'A comedy classic. If you loved I Capture the Castle you will love this. I laughed hard, page after page' The Times 'A joyous read, full of wit and charm . . . a glorious cast of characters' Sunday Express 'I couldn't have loved it more' Lisa Jewell
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