WENT TO LONDON, TOOK THE DOG

A sabbatical diary.

As a younger woman, the author nannied for a glamorous media couple living on Gloucester Crescent, an address made famous by Alan Bennett’s memoir The Lady in the Van. There, as an ingenue, she mingled with the literati and wrote a series of letters to her sister, comically unaware of her milieu. Love, Nina was widely acclaimed and adapted for TV by Nick Hornby. Now, 20 years, two children, and a failing marriage later, she revisits the scene. No surprise: Things have changed. We are still treated to celebrity sightings and pub quizzes with Nick. We visit literary festivals and her children, now at university in London, and meet her playwright landlord, busily producing The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. Since this is a diary, we get the passing scene: The queen dies, and Liz Truss comes and goes as prime minister; there are more personal concerns such as chicken bones in the street, the placement of mats in a Pilates class, the dangers of the wrong swimming lane, incontinence, and questions like “Why is lipstick just for women?” The first half of the book has a chirpy charm, and we root for a 60-year-old woman, albeit a rather privileged and self-regarding one, seeking her place in the world. We get tips on hand lotion and marmalade and lovely pottery from the Forest of Dean. And, since this is a sabbatical after all, she eventually returns to her husband in Cornwall, sadly resigned to being too old and too poor to start again in London. In shorter form, perhaps selected entries, the book is harmless. However, we’ve signed on for the whole year, and the year grows long.

Chatter for the chattering class.