Dust Free, Guaranteed (Mrs Murphy Hires a Cleaner - Kath Kincaid)

Member Name: Ophelia

Product:	Mrs Murphy Hires a Cleaner - Kath Kincaid
Date:	27/04/03 (86 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Good plot, interesting characters

Disadvantages: Still chick lit

When Karen (karenuk) lent me what appeared to be a classic Chick Lit book (brightly coloured cover with an illustration clearly drawn by someone who had never read the book), my heart sank. I am not a huge fan of the genre but I lay my prejudices aside and started the novel. A pleasant surprise lay in store.

THE PLOT

The central story revolves around Emily Murphy, a tired, dowdy, middle-aged housewife who is bored with life and whose husband has grown apart from her. One day she hires a cleaner (you didn?t see that coming, did you!) called Mae McNulty.

Mae is everything that Emily is not: vivacious and attractive with a very full life (four jobs and as many children). Within weeks Mae and her family begin to change the lives of Emily and Alex Murphy forever.

Rather more interestingly the book also contains several subplots that enrich the novel and lead to a far more complex read than I anticipated.

One of Mae?s children finds himself in possession of some blue plasticine, which unbeknownst to him is actually Semtex. Alex is working on a very important million pound bid, which is sent to the wrong address after Mae?s youngest girl adds a number one while playing at his keyboard. Three of the absent fathers of Mae?s children (a policeman, a professor from Boston and an Indian forced into an arranged marriage) also make unexpected appearances.

INTEREST

The content of the novel does include the traditional Chick Lit style story as Emily finds new found confidence, diets, gets new clothes, gets new lovers, starts a business and makes her husband fall in love with her once more. If this had been the sole focus of the book I would have been yawning before the end of the second chapter.

However, Kincaid includes numerous other interesting characters and storylines that do incite interest and excitement in the reader and she skilfully interweaves these plots in a believable and uncontrived
manner.

HUMOUR

What really brings this book to life is the humour found in the situations in which the characters are embroiled. The thought of a young boy innocently moulding Semtex into animal shapes, throwing it against the wall and trying to feed it to the dog, cannot fail to amuse.

Nor can the occasion when Alex finds himself waking up with a hangover in the arms of Steve Weatherspoon, a transvestite prostitute, who is actually heterosexual and just doing it as a way to support his wife and children after losing his job as a miner.

The book is filled with humour and brightens an already easy read.

CHARACTERS

Kincaid paints her characters well. We soon get to know everything about the main personalities so that we are easily able to empathise with them and understand their motives but we are also given detailed insights into lesser characters, so that all the scenes seem realistic and fully fleshed. In fact, it is some of the more minor characters that are the most interesting.

The Murphys have a gardener whom they inherited with the property and who is paid a miniscule 50 pence an hour. He is very old and most probably an alcoholic. He buys lottery tickets weekly but never checks the numbers (assuming the government will contact him if he has won). He often sleeps in one of the Murphys? sheds on a pile of old cloth sacks, drinking himself to sleep rather than cycling his ancient bicycle back to his ramshackle cottage.

Mae?s eldest daughter, Alice, is a free spirit. She has a child by a Serbo-Croatian man whom she met up a tree while protesting against the building of a by-pass. When she goes to see her mother at work and bumps into the Murphy?s son, Gareth, who is a social worker it is almost inevitable that love would blossom between them. The wedding of the two just serves to bring their mothers closer together as friends.

FINAL CHAPTER

At the conclusion o
f the book there is a chapter entitled ?almost one year later?. In this Kincaid adapts a movie style approach to inform the reader what has happened in the lives of the various characters; there is a brief paragraph about each one with news as to what has changed in the intervening period.

Although the style of this chapter is different to the rest of the book, it does not seem out of place and by including news on even the most minor of characters, emphasises how import these personalities have been both to the reader?s enjoyment and as influences on the other characters in the book.

The ending is happy (would you expect otherwise!) but is not sickly sweet walk off into the sunset type happy but more realistic and in keeping with the personalities of the characters.

SWEPT AWAY

The book was a very easy read, despite its 500 page length. There were interesting and well drawn characters, ingenious plots and, a real bonus, a large amount of humour.

Mrs Murphy hired a cleaner. Mrs Ophelia was swept away.


OTHER INFO
Publishers: Hodder and Stoughton, 338 Euston Road, London
Website: www.madaboutbooks.com
ISBN: 0-340-76880-0
Price: £5.99

Summary: