Leaving Patrick by Prue Leith 408pp, Penguin, £5.99
It's not enough to be a celebrity these days, you also have to be a brand. Just as Virgin is a cola, a savings product and an airline so Naomi Campbell is not only a supermodel but also, not long ago, became a "novelist". The inverted commas are in order because it was ghosted and because it was a dog. But celebrity gardener Alan Titchmarsh had much more success with his novel last year. It entered the bestseller charts. In his case he wrote it himself and it turned out he actually could write.
Now here comes another from Prue Leith. The exploitation of the Leith brand has been well underway for some time. Prue has been a restaurateur, a caterer, a teacher, a prolific cookery writer and a Business Woman of the Year with directorships for British Rail, Safeway and Whitbread among others. But is a foray into fiction stretching things a bit far? Not if you go into training. There is a disarmingly frank paragraph in the acknowledgments naming the novel-writing course Prue went on, something called the Literary Consultancy, which also apparently assisted, as well as her agent who told her "that the first draft would not do". Well, the final draft will do. It is a surprisingly accomplished novel.
For Penguin to publish Leaving Patrick on July 29, and in paperback on its first outing, can only mean one thing. They think it's a good beach read. The key criteria are romance (there's plenty), bonking (a modest amount), engaging characters (the heroine, certainly) and more than 400 pages (408, phew). So, on the face of it, Leaving Patrick will sell.
Jane is a successful city lawyer in her mid-30s. She is married to Patrick, a decent cove with a declining restaurant. Jane works non-stop, often abroad. Patrick is preoccupied with his business and so they rarely even meet. The only answer would be for Jane to give up work, move out of London, get an Aga, two Labradors and a baby. Patrick would like this. Jane recoils from it in horror. Like many professional women whose biological clocks are ticking, she is still determined that the patronising men in her firm should make her a full partner. From my own experience, this is a tale well-rooted in reality.
To escape these pressures Jane sets off for an Indian holiday where she seduces another decent cove, Rajiv. Meanwhile Patrick has taken up with Stella, an entirely unsuitable (but not entirely believable) restaurant writer and serial chef seducer. There are to be tears both before and at bedtime. Jane wins her equity partnership but shortly afterwards tells them where they can put it. Rajiv, whom Jane has imported to London, is unhappy and goes home to an arranged marriage. And bit by bit Jane dismantles the life she had left Patrick in order to preserve. Does she finally return to Patrick? Well, Nick Hornby has made the happy ending respectable again. So it is quite possible. But I should not reveal the dénouement .
The men in Leaving Patrick are, for the most part, pukka public school types who don't express their emotions much. They are rather under the thumb of the women who scheme, agonize and seduce. In truth, they are a bit on the cardboard side. Couldn't there have been at least one perfect beast? The nearest thing to it is a trusted sommelier who legs it with thousands of pounds of stock. So it is quite possible. What are we modern chaps reduced to?
As you would expect, food plays an important part in the book. There's a description of a cassoulet early on which makes you want to stop reading and start eating. There is curry and pilau rice, cod and polenta, lemon curd tart, turbot with squid's ink risotto, sea bass on Chinese noodles and a lesson in lamb korma. Near the end Jane masters the art of bread-making, not only great therapy but a potent image of domesticity.
So if you go on holiday primarily for food and sex, Leaving Patrick will be a good companion. It has lashings of the former and reasonable helpings of the latter.
