ENOUGH TO FEMINISTS PALPITATIONS! (Patrick Parker's Progress - Mavis Cheek)

Member Name: Skyedame

Product:	Patrick Parker's Progress - Mavis Cheek
Date:	28/09/05 (117 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Funny, infuriating - cracking good story

Disadvantages: None

MAVIS CHEEK writes entertaining stories about women getting their own back on noxious men, and this is no exception. But the title suggests …what? For some reason, although an ardent Cheek fan, I didn't buy this book, instead preferring to get it from the library, because I had a suspicion that I may not enjoy it as much as the others (The Sex Life of My Aunt; Aunt Margaret's Lover to name two). Even the blurb on the back of the book didn't particularly whet my appetite (and on reflection, I think it gave a little too much of the story away), nor was the cover particularly enticing. These days, presentation is all.

So, I nearly missed this gem.

The Creation of a Monster:

Patrick Parker is born in London in 1940 - a stroke of luck as his mother, Florence, was staying with her friend and on the night Patrick was born, her hometown of Coventry was turned to rubble after a particularly nasty onslaught of German bombs. After such a narrow escape, she frequently refers to Perfect Patrick as her miracle child. Some would say the Second Coming.

Florence is an awesomely over-protective mother, and devotes her life to her beautiful son. Nothing is too much, his every whim is catered for and, because he is extremely bright, she ensures his talents are recognised and lauded by anyone who'll listen. Her possessiveness is frightening, and must serve as a warning to doting mothers everywhere that there's a fine line between loving encouragement and instilling in the child that he is a demigod.

Her total control ensures his father is sidelined in the rearing of Patrick, the eighth wonder of the world. However, Mr Parker does engage his son's attention long enough to introduce him to his hobby of model-making, and so Patrick's desire to build wonderful civic structures is born.

Bridges, to be precise.

Isambard Kingdom Brunel becomes his hero and nothing is going to stop Patrick from following in the great man's footsteps to create the most beautiful bridges the world has ever seen.

What a shame he chose such a hero - a male chauvinist. Combine that with Patrick's mother's belief that he is superior to his peers, the dice is well and truly cast and Patrick Parker's ruthless progress begins.

Little Audrey Wapshott is the daughter of the friend Florence stayed with in London. Little Audrey is a child of spirit and generosity. Not only that, she's clever. Unfortunately for her, it is the wrong time for women to be spirited and clever and just as Patrick's mother applauds her son's every muscle twitch, so Little Audrey's mother misguidedly dampens her daughter's emerging ambitions for her own future.

Little Audrey adores Patrick and, blinded by adulation, she subconsciously sublimates her own desires and dreams. Not so unusual in the period the book is written. Marriage and motherhood were deemed the ultimate attainments in a woman's life. Office and shop work were considered suitable fill-ins before a woman became a wife. Serious careers were not an option.

It's enough to make a feminist cry.

Women of the millennium may find Audrey's mind-set outrageous. Where is the woman's spunk? Remember, this is the 1960s and although the age of permissiveness and the pill was about to change women's lives forever, for better or for worse, it would be some years before women were to be given the same opportunities as men, should they so desire. Mavis Cheek cleverly gives us an insight into the social expectations and limited opportunities for women during that 'emancipated' period.

However, Audrey does embark on an adventure of her own, if not entirely intentionally.

The story, which begins in post-war Britain to the Millennium year, is peppered with amusing satirical observations, usually from Audrey's point of view. It is sharp and original (even if, in parts, it did remind me a little of the wonderful Allan Bennett, he of 'Writing Home' fame). Strangely, Patrick Parker's character doesn't have one redeeming feature. We despise him all the way through; we hate his mother whose brainwashing of her darling son implants in his psyche that it's acceptable to treat women with breathtaking callousness and to use them for his own agenda. We despair of his whimpish father, and we most definitely cheer Audrey whose flashes of fire are occasionally allowed to break through.

One of the most thought-provoking scenes in the book is where Audrey, on a visit home to her mother, has to listen to her mother's latest report on Patrick's progress. Her mother sniffs and says: "It's not surprising he got on in life, given all that effort his mother put into him." "Then why," Audrey asks, "didn't you do the same for me?"

Indeed.

We learn a little about the building of bridges for Cheek has researched well - and very interesting reading it makes, too. Each paragraph is headed with a quote from selected books on bridge architecture and if you read it carefully, you realise that it is giving a clever hint as to where the next chapter in the story might lead us.

Patrick Parker's Progress held my interest completely. I experienced the emotions of rage, despair, laughter, sympathy, impatience and a strong desire to read it all over again.

Depending on the age of the woman reading it (and it has to be said that this is a woman's book) she will gasp at the patronising attitude of men towards women and, sadly, the short-sightedness of mothers in their aspirations for their daughters, in the period the book is set. She will probably nod her head and say, 'Yes, if I knew then what I know now, my life may have been different. Why didn't I follow my dreams instead of somebody else's?'

Thank God for progress!

Thank you for reading.


I include here the ISBN numbers for those of you, like me, do not have the luxury of a large bookstore near you. In which case, you
can use the ISBN numbers to pop immediately over to AMAZON to see the price and availability.

ISBN: Hardcover: 0 7540 9511 8
ISBN: Softcover: 0 7540 9402 2

Summary: An entertaining read which I found difficult to put down.