Appleby House

Publishers Weekly

Smith (Misadventures) uses short vignettes to paint a picture of the year she lived in a bedsit in 1984 London's East End in this peculiar, pointillistic memoir. Four women-Sylvia (the narrator), Sharon, Tracey and Laura-and Sharon's boyfriend, Peter, live in a near constant state of subdued battle as squabbles erupt over noise levels, who used up the hot water and who forgot to replace the toilet paper in the shared bathroom. The writing style echoes the simplicity of the lives of the residents of Appleby House, although the prose is frequently graceless and clich d: "She walked towards me," Smith writes of her housemate Sharon, "with a big smile on her face and greeted me with a cheery `Hi.' We were soon deep in conversation." Although the publisher calls this memoir "a very literary equivalent of The Real World," it lacks depth, and the writing keeps the readers at a distance. Smith thoroughly describes buying a used television, where she keeps her kitchen trolley and her amusement over the handprint her landlord, Mr. Appleby, leaves on the phone when he's fixing the house. Yet she uses broader strokes on weightier subjects, skimping on details: "Our personalities clicked," she writes plainly of one of her boyfriends, "but our relationship was spattered with rows." As the book unfolds, many of the chapters feel disjointed, as Smith reveals tiny, tantalizing glimpses of the characters' lives, but leaves them teasingly unexplored. When readers step back to see the whole, this memoir reveals not a picture of the characters, nor even the house itself, but the trivia of everyday life. (Sept. 9) Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

This low-key, autobiographical story of sharing a female-only bedsit (semiprivate apartment) in 1980s London is endearing in its lack of artifice but has none of the sauciness or naughtiness of other recent entries in the "feckless young woman" genre (read: Bridget Jones's Diary). Although the minutiae of daily life in close quarters form a charming core, the anecdotes are not always discerningly selected, and the amount of detail-the exact location of the shopping cart, the neighbor's dog's habits of elimination-is wearying. Smith also is simply not a talented prose writer; her dialog in particular is stilted. However, this is, overall, an affable weekend afternoon read. Most of those who have lived in similar arrangements will read it in one sitting, remembering their own wars over filthy toilets and loud music, the thrill of sneaking in the late-night visitor, and the friendships that can result from shared living. For larger public and dormitory libraries.-Terren Ilana Wein, Univ. of Chicago Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

A plain-Jane year in the life of a single woman in London, told with deadening restraint. In chapters the size of postage stamps, Smith (Misadventures, not reviewed) tells of her year living in an East End bed-sit. The circumstances are the stuff of everyday: three other women live in the house; the gas, electric, and hot water are coin-operated; boyfriends are not supposed to spend the night during the week, but one is in permanent residence downstairs; her floor-mate plays the TV and stereo much too loudly, and the other residents consider her a "selfish cow." In an easy voice conspicuous in its flatness, Smith tells readers, "the toilet was an absolute disgrace," and, "living next to Laura made life unpleasant and I considered what to do about it." What she does is meekly mention the volume, and Laura tells her to shove off. There is much parrying and thrusting as they seek to drive one another mad, though Smith keeps an even--not to say bland--keel while relating events. A neighbor leaves the dog out too long and it cries, bath water is nicked, the rota of toilet paper renewal is often forgotten. The author goes out dancing occasionally, or to a bar, but is more often found in her room with tea and television. There is an awful lot of talk about laundry, and readers’ heart monitors may well be flat-lining at the artless placidity of it all. Smith expresses no yearning, no introspection, no ups and downs. Even her rare fits of self-assertion are without inflection: "Each time I ran the bath I found it was rinsed but not cleaned. . . . I cleaned the bath before I got in it and only gave it a quick rinse after I'd used it. That way we both faced a dirty bath." Such is the drama of lifewith Laura. For living-theater fans only.