MR. PORTER AND THE BROTHERS JONES

A short, quirky debut novel, not altogether convincing at times but certainly original.

Beginning at the end of the story, Mr. Porter convinces his psychiatrist that it’s vital for him to drive to Italy from his home in London. After he arrives, memory unfolds, and the strange story of Mr. Porter and the brothers Jones is revealed. One day while walking home from the grocer, Mr. Porter notices a pretty young woman obviously waiting for someone. Later in the evening he notices a man in the same spot, also waiting. He tells the stranger not to bother, the woman has gone, and so the distressed young man invites Mr. Porter for a beer. And also for an intimate story. The young woman, Lilac, is his mistress—and also his sister-in-law. The characters in the ensuing drama—Lilac and Jerome, the two lovers; and Joshua and Beatrice, the spouses—through one means or another (usually contrived and forced) seek Mr. Porter out for advice. Which is an odd choice given Mr. Porter’s temperament: as an obsessional-compulsive (relating to his bowel movements), he is not only wary of strangers but usually disdainful. Wealthy and secretive, prone to bouts of mania and depression, he would seemingly be the last person capable of giving good counsel but is surprisingly adept at it, no doubt due to his own years of psychiatric treatment. As they all secretly come to tell their side of the story, Mr. Porter’s psychiatrist fears his patient may be slipping into a delusional state, what with all these unbelievable tales of the Jones’s he brings her. Are they real? Imagined? Mr. Porter falls in love with the troubled Lilac and obsesses about her being a dangerous woman, either to herself or others. His intuition about her will prove tragically true.

Despite its few plotting flaws, a curiously satisfying little work.