At the start of Good Material, we meet Andy, a 35-year-old standup comic who is trying to get over a breakup and listing the reasons why he is better off without his ex-girlfriend, Jen. These include her inability to drive a car, being “too connected to dogs”, having weird parents and lingering for too long in museums “at every artefact or painting … [I] once saw her nod respectfully at a TINY JADE SPOON in the British Museum.”
Dolly Alderton’s richly entertaining second novel is a chronicle of a relationship in its death throes and the aftermath of separation, told initially from Andy’s perspective and latterly – and rather too briefly – from Jen’s. Arthur Darvill (Doctor Who) brings a smart balance of neurosis and warmth to his reading of Andy, who is devastated when Jen announces she is leaving him. Drama ensues as he seeks solace in the pub and later in the arms of a 23-year-old named Sophie who doesn’t laugh at his jokes, calls him “boomer” and cringes at his Beatles references.
Meanwhile, The Crown’s Vanessa Kirby is excellent as the pragmatic, straight-talking Jen, an executive at an insurance firm who, nearly four years into her and Andy’s relationship, realises she isn’t cut out for settling down and having children, even though all their friends seem to be doing just that. As well as a funny account of millennial love, Good Material is an acute portrayal of thirtysomething middle-class life when choices around careers and family weigh heavily, and when heartbreak can be followed by new beginnings.
• Good Material by Dolly Alderton is available via Penguin Audio, 9hr 54min
Further listening
Went to London, Took the Dog
Nina Stibbe, Picador, 11hr 3min
A bittersweet memoir in which the Love, Nina author returns to London after decades in the West Country to escape her husband, and contemplate divorce.
The Incredible Unlikeliness of Being
Alice Roberts, Quercus, 11hr 15min
The TV presenter and academic narrates her book about the miracle of human evolution and the secrets that lurk in our genes.
