The Tap Dancer, by Andrew Barrow

Andrew Barrow won the McKitterick Prize and the Hawthornden Prize for The Tap Dancer. The reason I know this is because I found this novel on the "award winning shelf" at the Central Library and decided to borrow it because it says "a comic masterpiece" on the front cover. (See the small red print by the trousers?)

How can a bookworm like me pass by a "comic masterpiece" on the award winning shelf at the library?

Unfortunately, I didn't find it that funny. (Is it because I am not English?) It was almost rambly at certain points, going on and on about the minute details of British living. Nothing extraordinary happens plot-wise, but still, I found it a strangely compelling read. I couldn't put it down.

Perhaps it was the keen and humorous dialogue. Or perhaps it was the weird, off-the-wall characters. Barrow described them so well that I half expected them to climb out of the book and shake me by the hand. The protagonist, the father of the first person narrator, is unforgettable, along with all the other characters from the novel. Barrow is quite the genius at characterization.

Reading the novel also gives the reader a feel of Britain after World War II, where you can get a meal in London for under a pound.