The Terrible Privacy of Maxwell Sim

Maxwell Sim is out of work, newly divorced, and clinically depressed. He has just returned from Australia where he failed to renew any sort of bond between himself and his distant and estranged father. How then can this book be so funny? Of course, it's a dark sort of humor but Jonathan Coe has crafted a brilliant tragic-comic tale with a hero who can't help but make a mess of his life. Despondent upon his return from Australia, he lucks into a job selling environmentally- friendly toothbrushes. His first assignment involves a road trip from London to the distant Shetland Islands. It is on this trip that Max's life truly begins to unravel. At each stop along the way, whether visiting friends or his ex-wife and daughter, Max learns something about his past or his identity that pushes him closer to the brink madness. The only person he can really talk to is the calming female voice of the navigation system in his company's Prius. While the laughs came less frequently the fart! her north Max journeyed, I could not wait to find out what the next stop would reveal, where Max's mind would wander and, of course, where he would end up. An absolutely fantastic novel. ~ Reviewed by Stan Hynds