Keith Waterhouse (1929–2009)

I’m over the moon that I held onto this book after first reading it forty odd years ago.
William Fisher is in a bit of a pickle. Wife Jeanette wants a baby and a new Mayfield Mortgagedene bungalow. Insatiable and unpredictable mistress Helen is veering out of control. The back-stabbing shenanigans in the Information and Publicity Department of Shepford Town Council are hitting new heights. The imminent annual festival needs fine-tuning and the deadline for Pageantry with Progress (new show more edition) looms. Throw in Mr Pussy Paws, a missing set of second-hand golf clubs, Oscar on repeat and rat-faces galore. What could possibly go wrong?
Billy Liar on the Moon is funny and farcical, clever and current - swindle sheets, corruption and town planning madness aren’t going anywhere soon. All the characters and situations are brilliantly described and Bill is an absolute legend. Cheers! Mine’s a large vodka martini (on expenses). show less

After two pages, I said to Jim, "Oh, he's OCD". Not the guts of the story, but a complicating factor. It's England in the hinterlands, in 1959, and Billy, 19, is struggling in a job he detests, a social life he can't cope with, a depressed economy and a depressing family, but he can't seem to get out. His every action and inaction lead to more complications, with his employer, with women, with family. Some of it is very funny (I'm sure it reads well on audio), but the cage is closing in on show more him and he knows it. How will he escape?

Very nicely written, with some terrific sentences and images:

the fat women rolling along on their bad feet like toy clowns in pudding basins

or Frowning women, their black, scratched handbags crammed with half-digested grievances..

or I was amazed and intrigued that they should all be content to be nobody but themselves.

In all, a vivid portrait of that part of England in that year between the war and the artistic explosion of the 60s, as well as that of a young man adrift. show less

Billy Fisher is a 19-year-old suffocating in a small fictional Yorkshire town and this book covers one day in his life. Billy works as an undertaker's clerk, is nagged by his mother and shouted at by his father, is engaged to two girls but is in love with a third and dreams of becoming a hit comedy writer. Feeling trapped by the monotony of his everyday life Billy frequently disappears into a world of daydreams and lies. Inevitably, Billy's compulsive lies begin to catch up with him.

'Billy show more Liar' became an instant hit following its first publication in 1959 and has been adapted into a play, a musical, a TV series and even a film.

I found this a quick, warm and pleasant read filled with a subtle British humour which although it didn't actually make me laugh out loud, I did read it with a smile. Billy is an interesting character, a lively storyteller with an unmistakably northern humour but like all the best comedy, the book's tragedy rings true with a much wider audience that still resonates today. show less

Billy Fisher (aka Billy Liar) is out of school and on the cusp of adulthood. He's working a dead end job as a clerk in a funeral home, a job he performs by mostly not doing the job. He has a stash of advertising calendars he was supposed to mail to a client list for his employer months ago stashed under his bed, and his boss is becoming suspicious. He also has problems in the romance department. Three girls think she is his fiancée. He has problems keeping them in the dark about each other, show more as well as passing one ring among them. He is still living at home with his mom, dad, and irascible old grandmother constantly on his case. Billy is finding life impossible. All he really wants to do is move to London and become a comedy writer for a famous stand-up comedian. He compensates by frequently drifting into daydreams a la Walter Mitty. We spend the day with Billy as he dodges various crises of his own making, and wondering when his lies will catch up with him.
The author is considered one of the Angry Young Men writers of post-war Britain. To a certain extent since it treats themes of working class life and the inequalities and difficulties faced by the working class, I suppose this is accurate. But the book is much more humor than anger.
For the most part I enjoyed reading the book with the exceptions of large portions that consist of dialogue and conversations between Billy and one or another of his mates in which they engage in banter along the lines of what you might hear in a comedy routine in a vaudeville show, I mostly didn't follow these conversations, and didn't grasp what they were talking about, much the less find any of it funny. I wonder if any current day readers appreciate/understand these routines. Or maybe it's something you just have to be a British male to get. show less