I have just finished my 41st book - A Fraction of the Whole, by Steve Toltz, which I read as an audiobook. It is an epic - telling the life story of Martin Dean ... the most hated man in Australia, who is the brother of Terry Dean ... the most loved man in Australia. How did two brothers become the polar opposite on the popularity stakes? Well, as the book unfolds, we find out in graphic detail about the Dean family, from before the brothers were born to their deaths. Told from two perspectives - Jasper, the much put upon and regularly bewildered and disgusted son of Martin, and from Martin himself. The use of two excellent narrators to voice each of these two works fabulously. Full of philosophical musings (and the odd rant), with Jung, Frome and others all in the mix - we journey through a lifetime of lows and disappointments, with the odd highpoint thrown in to prevent you from complete despair. Despite the often desperate (and usually self-inflicted) situations Martin finds himself in - there are an amazing number of laughs and chuckles smattered throughout. It is a long, long book - and there are some tricky sections to plough through, but it is definitely worth the effort. Not for the faint-hearted (language, violence and general seediness are to be found!), this is a book that will stay with me, despite having a central character that you just want to slap. It's a book about life - luckily, someone else's life - but the core themes of relationships - siblings, fathers and sons, mothers and sons, wives and girlfriends - are thing any of us can related to. I'll miss the Dean family - and I never though I would say that.
My star rating: FOUR
The stats bit:
Length: 720 print pages (around 26 hours in audio)
Price I paid: £7.99 (via my monthly download from Audible)
Other formats available in: Print; EBook; Audio CD.
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