I once heard the
British novelist Esther Freud in a literary programme. She was there to speak
about Lucky Break, the publication of which, I seem to remember Freud
telling the audience, was postponed by Harper Collins at her request, because
she wasn’t happy about certain sections of it. I can’t remember now whether
Freud read out an excerpt from her novel. In the question answer session (during
which one man asked—and I am not making this up—whether she would recommend
Morocco as a holiday destination seeing as she had spent some time in that country)
she talked about how many of her novels were inspired by her own life
experiences. (Afterwards, while taking copies of Hideous Kinky and Pearless Flats to Freud for her
autograph, I asked her simperingly whether she had thought about writing a
novel about her illustrious family. Freud gave me a weary look. I was obviously not
the first (and wouldn’t be the last) to ask her this question. In a manner
befitting a class teacher trying her best to think of something encouraging to
say to the very keen pupil who is ten bricks short of a load in her class she
said that no, she had no intention of writing a novel about her illustrious
family.
Lucky Break is Freud’s seventh novel. It follows the
fortunes of a group of drama students over a period of 14 years, between 1992
and 2006. We first meet them as gauche and anxious teenagers, on their first
day at a drama school in London, run by a gay couple, one of whom is so
caricaturesquely tyrannical, he can’t be real. But perhaps he is. (Having
watched many real life cookery programmes, I have to accept that there are men
who are capable of going at the deep end over a bowl of soup; so it is not
inconceivable that there are men out there who take acting very, very seriously.)
Not all of the candidates make it to the final year. Those—mostly women—who the
gay tyrant thinks won’t cut the mustard are asked to leave, while some
others—mostly good looking young men whom the gay man is hoping to lure into his
bed—are allowed to complete the course. As the novel progresses Freud concentrates on
the ebb and flow of the careers of three of them: Nell—plainer than a Tesco
pitta bread—who is asked to leave at the end of the second year but refuses to
take the hint; Charlie—part Nigerian and part English—who is beautiful and
believes that it is only a matter of time before success finds her address; and
the handsome, ambitious Dan who marries Jemma, another reject of the drama
school, like Nell, who (unlike Nell) takes the hint and devotes herself full
time to raise Dan’s family.
In prose that is
simple yet elegant, marked by compassion, and flavoured with wry humour Freud
depicts for the reader a tableau of the lives of people who are wedded to
acting , and soldier on even as the passing years bring home the realisation
that they are probably not going to be the next Ian McKellen. There are several set pieces—such as Nell’s
encounter with a film director, hornier than a bunny rabbit on Viagra, or a
chronically drunk actor disappearing in the middle of a run of a
production—which, while they may not split your sides, will bring a smile to
your face. Very occasionally, though, such as Nell’s stint in Edinburgh with a
group of physically handicapped actors, it becomes too surreal.
Of the three main
protagonists Nell and Dan are blander than the Thursday night curry at the
Weatherspoon’s. Dan, for whom the gay
teacher at the drama school has high hopes, does not quite fulfil his
potential; and, despite occasional bit-parts roles in American sitcoms which
achieve a modicum of popularity, toils in the slow lane. He remains faithful to
Jemma and is devoted to their four children. Jemma, on her part, is phlegmatic
about the damning verdict of the drama school that she hasn’t got what it takes
to become an actress. You almost wish at times for them to stop being so bloody
reasonable and supportive, and yearn for them to have an almighty row, driven
by Jemma’s jealousy and Dan’s infidelity (it does not happen; these two carry
on being maddeningly reasonable). Charlie is in many ways the most interesting:
she is vain, conceited, self-centred, and driven. She is one of the few women students who are
allowed to complete the three-year course at the drama school, and, after
completing the course, her career appears to be taking off for a while; unlike
that of the dumpy Nell. As Charlie bags roles in sitcoms, Nell is flaps her
penguin’s wings in children’s shows in Northern towns (with name full of
combative consonants). Since the offers are far and few in-between, Nell is forced to wait at the local Pizza
Express, along with her flatmate, another struggling actress of Indian descent,
who is fed up of playing the young Asian woman forced into an arranged marriage
by her on-screen parents. Charlie remains friends with Nell, but it is an
unequal relationship, as Charlie remembers to phone Nell only when she is
having boyfriend troubles (and expects Nell to drop everything and rush to her
flat (and eat ice-cream tubs). It is Nell, however, who gets the eponymous
lucky break and stars in a blockbuster Hollywood film while Charlie’s career
stymies. As the novel ends, Charlie—much
to the reader’s disappointment—has meekly accepted the shift in her
relationship with Nell as the two women go for the London premiere of Nell’s
film. (Prince Charles and Camilla are two of the few real-life characters who
make a guest appearance in the novel.)
Lucky Break is a gentle and tender-hearted portrayal of
the world of the actors. The pace of the novel, like its prose, is sedate, and,
for a novel purporting to show the lives of actors—a profession that, it would
be fair to assume, has more than its share of narcissists—, it is somewhat lacking
in drama and grand gestures and tense standoffs. But Freud more than makes up
for it with astute observations, eye for the detail, and subtle humour.
I do not know how true
to life Lucky Break is. Freud was an actress—not a very successful one,
though; and, I read somewhere, a reject of a drama school—before she turned her
hand at writing; so one assumes that she has drawn upon her own experiences
when she wrote the novel. It is an
engrossing read, proof, if proof be needed, that you don’t have to cram your
novel with grand moments to make it readable. I liked it very much.
