Behind the net curtains

Waking Up in Toytown, by John Burnside
The Freedoms of Suburbia, by Paul Barker

Finding himself in a lunatic asylum, and then at a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous, John Burnside has an idea. He wants a normal life. His idea is to move to the suburbs, because it is there, he feels, that he might become ‘a regular, everyday sort of guy. The next-door neighbour whose name you can never remember, the one who keeps himself to himself, but is basically OK.’

Does he really want a normal life? I’m not so sure. In any case, he arrives in Surrey, seeking ‘a Surbiton of the mind’, and ends up on the edge of Guildford, in a shared flat, with an addiction counsellor and a determination to give up drinking. Pretty soon, though, he is beginning to waver. As soon as he begins to feel settled, he tells us that, ‘I wasn’t altogether convinced that I was ready to be normal.’