Reviewed by Chun Yin Wah
Unavoidable giggles along the way make Clare Dowling’s novel, No Strings Attached (2007, Headline Review, 472 pages), entertaining and rewarding. In fact, it’s one of the funniest novels I’ve read recently. Often I laughed aloud.
The tale begins with Judy Brady, a bride-to-be, frantically preparing for her wedding on the coming Saturday. Her groom, Barry Fox, happens to be the most popular doctor in the small town of Cove, Ireland. Judy and Barry have known each other since they were three years old, but their intimate relationship began eight years ago. After dating four years, they moved in together. Now they’re getting married.
Barry recruits an old school friend, Lenny, as his best man. Lenny, a gorgeous, sexy movie producer, flies in from Australia and arrives with an international model he picked up on the flight.
Meanwhile, Judy’s brother Biffo returns from the United States with his Miss Perfect girlfriend. Previously, he’d dated Angie, one of Judy’s pals. Unable to accept that Angie earned 10 times more money than he did, Biffo had chased the American dream.
As the wedding nears, Barry behaves strangely. He idolizes Lenny and makes a drunken pass at the model. Judy decides that Lenny’s a bad influence because she can’t resist comparing the shapes of his and Barry’s posteriors. On the night before the wedding, Barry gets cold feet and runs away to France.
Being the best man, Lenny’s trapped at Judy and Barry’s house because Judy’s mother asked him to keep an eye on Judy. At the home of Judy’s parents, her father foolishly tries to impress Biffo’s American girlfriend.
After a few weeks, Barry calls Judy asking her to bail him out of jail where he’d landed for drunk-driving and trying to outrace the French police. By then, Judy and Lenny had hit it off, but she decides to rescue the wayward groom. When Judy goes to bail out Barry, Lenny returns to Australia.
Barry tells Judy that he’d run off after considering how Lenny had left small-town life and become a smashing success. Suddenly, he’d needed solitude to find the true meaning of life.
Once Barry realizes that Judy won’t take him back, he resorts to badmouthing her around town. For a long time, there’s no happy ending in sight.
Every character has an important role, and every sentence is fun to read in this highly enjoyable book.
Approval rating: 90 per cent.
For more information: www.claredowling.co.uk
(August 3, 2008)
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