Midnight All Day (original 1999; edition 2000)

Short stories about depressed, divorced, middle-aged dads in Notting Hill or somewhere: fairly uniformly miserable, with only the occasional touch of humour, mostly directed against himself. There are a couple of really good, memorable pieces: "Strangers when we meet", in which a young actor's plans to slip away for a few days with his lover are upset when her husband comes along, and "Four blue chairs", in which a couple who have rather tentatively moved in together after leaving their previous partners are faced with the challenge of getting some furniture home from Habitat. (Well, you didn't think it was going to be MFI, did you..?) But the rest is much of a muchness, with only the final rather silly fable about an escaped penis to lighten the mood a bit. ( )

Doesn't live upto "Love in a Blue time"! ( )