Lurid & Cute is too true to its title

One of the duties of a reviewer is to alert potential readers to the flavour and content of a book, particularly if it comes into the category of ‘not a suitable present for your great-aunt’. I always dislike this duty, since it spoils surprises, which are the essence of enjoyment in reading; but Adam Thirlwell’s first novel, Politics, did perhaps require a few alerts. The title gave no clue that it was about a sexual threesome, and would have introduced the putative great-aunt to rimming, undinism, and an exhausting range of esoteric practices.

The flavour of Thirlwell’s third novel, however, Lurid & Cute, is blazoned on the cover. You can’t fault this one on the Trade Descriptions Act. This is a ‘tale of suburban sex and violence’, told, as the narrator says, ‘with all the tones that no one ever admires — the Gruesome, Tender, Needy, Sleazy, Boring, the Lurid and the Cute’.