There is a clue on the back cover. You will know that books are often adorned with quotations from famous folk saying how smashing they are.
Well, the first quote on the back of The Hotel Avocado is from a clearly fictional Wesley Stopwatch, and it reads: “At last a book with a fixed duration.”
So it seems we are in for a few chuckles from this wickedly amusing author.
Author Bob Mortimer is a much-loved wit, appearing often on British telly as a participant in celebrity quiz shows, and as the fishing partner of fellow comedian Paul Whitehouse on Gone Fishing.
This is Mortimer’s second novel, and is a follow-up to his award-winning debut, The Satsuma Complex. (Satsumas are mandarin oranges, similar to naartjies.)
As the title suggests, the plot of this latest book revolves on the Hotel Avocado, a seafront property in the British resort of Brighton. Its owner, Emily, has inherited the rundown property from her late father and is restoring it and preparing for a relaunch.
At the beginning of the book, Emily’s boyfriend, Gary, is still living in London, working for a law firm, and popping down to Brighton at weekends.
This tale follows on from the first book, which I have not yet read, in which it seems Gary was a witness to the antics of a bunch of bent coppers, who are about to go on trial. He is confronted by a nasty thug with a bouffant hairstyle, called Mr Sequence, whose task is to prevent Gary from bearing witness at the trial.
Sequence’s hair arrangement is described with great delight: “Dark brown, with a few wisps of grey, it was parted down the centre and had enough height on either side of the parting to conceal a couple of sausage rolls. It then rolled down over his ears and formed a thick neck pelmet dense enough to provide cover for a nervous mouse. I wanted to touch it from the moment I saw it.”
This is a fun read. Lighthearted, sprinkled with humour and a few absurdities, with everyday characters, most of them reassuringly ordinary.
The type of people you would meet in a local pub — which is something Gary does with one of them, as they watch football and chat about the type of pet mouse you would want to join you in a survivalist bunker, hiding out from a zombie apocalypse.
Normal pub chatter, then.
There is another, less attractive character — the corrupt councillor Jordan — and he is the type of politician that many South Africans might recognise.
He is approached to arrange planning permission to adorn the front of the hotel with an enormous depiction of an avocado, in a subplot that provides many giggles. Being a local government official, it comes as no surprise that he solicits a substantial bribe in return for his help.
Other assorted misfits and eccentrics include a coffee shop owner — who is full of pretension about his brews but sources his coffee from a down-market supermarket.
Then there’s Grace — an elderly woman who is Gary’s neighbour in London, and whose main joy in life seems to be watching a TV show about New Zealand customs officers and the contraband they seize.
Mortimer joins other British celebrities who have moved from live performances and small screen to writing comic novels. It is always risky to do so because it is impractical to stuff a novel with jokes in the same way as a performer must do when interacting with an audience. There is always the risk that some fans might feel cheated that there are not several jokes per page.
The Hotel Avocado doesn’t attempt to be as funny as its author can be when he is entertaining a live or TV audience. However, by creating the right cast of characters, and peppering the narrative with witty observations, interactions and situations, Mortimer makes this an entertaining page-turner.
He trained as a solicitor before turning to a life in comedy, so his depiction of the dull-as-ditchwater law firm where Gary is employed as a legal assistant is telling.
The second quote on the back of this book is from another invention — Low Kenneth — who says it is “ideal for reading while sat under a horse”.
Not having any horses to hand, I read it in an armchair, and it worked just as well. Armchairs also have the advantage that they require far less grooming, feeding or exercise than horses do.
There was a time when I read the works of a wave of mid-20th century humorous British novelists, like Kingsley Amis, David Lodge and Malcolm Bradbury, and there are echoes of all these writers in this book.
There is also a whiff of Tom Sharpe, whose devastating satires of apartheid SA and the vile policemen who enforced its racist doctrine both entertained and shocked me.
Mortimer, then, is the latest in a long tradition of British authors who create both ordinary and eccentric characters to populate a tall tale, set in mundane surroundings, to entertain their readers.
The Hotel Avocado was great fun to read, and I am already planning to seek out Mortimer’s debut novel to find out how Gary and Emily got into this fine mess in the first place.
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