Laura 's Reviews > Milkman

Dear Ms Burns - you've read Lysistrata by Aristophanes - women get together, put their collective foot down and control their men who are continually warring in the 4th century B.C., Ancient Greece. Ok, so it's a 20th century, Belfast take on - "Women Put Their Collective Foot Down"!!

I love this book - it is Super-Good. I enjoyed it so much - I loved our hero narrator - middle sister, and all the other women who feature so predominately. Right-on Booker judges - you got it right - for once. Personally I think Kwame Anthony Appiah - has prevailed with his sense of what is important in Literature.

So - really the world doesn't need another review or synopsis of Milkman, so I'm just going to run through my favourite bits, anyway!

The farce really begins after real-milkman is shot and taken to hospital:

...ma, on hearing of the shooting, was able to reach the hospital first. Immediately she was pounced upon by the police and taken to some little hospital cupboard-room for questioning. Why did she want to see this man, this terrorist, whom they'd just shot as enemy-of-the state, they asked? Of course they were seen to be trying their hand, this police, wondering it it might be possible to turn this middle-aged girlfriend of a middle-aged wounded paramilitary into an agent for them.
....
The thing was though, fast on the heels of ma to the hospital came three further possible middle-aged girlfriends of the same wounded paramilitary. Then another four also turned up. The police ran out of little impromptu hospital cupboard-rooms into which to spirit this potential supergrass demographic. That meant they had to transfer them to the police barracks which, given the growing girlfriend numbers, would no longer keep the situation as stealthy as they, the police would have liked.
....
The renouncers-of-the-state in our district, faced with the prospect of eighteen ex-pious women whom they knew would have to be psycho-evaluated to uncover if any of them had been flipped as informers, also found the situation unworkable. Not just unworkable - ridiculous. Not just ridiculous - perturbing. And not only in terms of the political situation was it unworkable, ridiculous and perturbing, but also on the more private footing of these women being the district's traditional wives and mothers as well.

It's so unbelievably good this whole turning of the situation because of the love story between ma and real-milkman, which has been on hold for the last 30 years because of ma being married to da, the wrong husband, etc.

So, dear Goodreader - you're just going to have to go and read it for yourselves. It does require a bit of concentration, because you need to keep, first brother, and second brother who was killed, and fourth brother, who's not really a brother and longest friend, and wee sisters - who are unbelievably hilarious and delightful, you have to try and keep up with the complexities of the complex cast. But it is definitely worth it - situation comedy - I think at its absolute best.