Leonard and Hungry Paul

For me the difficulty in writing a this review is that the author so clearly wanted his novel to defy labels, describing it only as a story about gentle people trying to make their way in the world. And yet immediately, labels spring to mind.<br /><br />The first I feel compelled to deploy is 'feel-good fiction’ (or the term of the moment, 'up-lit'). Unlike other novels that fall into this category, the focus shifts away from individuals overcoming obstacles: damaged pasts, disfigurement or dementia. The heroes (another label, but one I feel is fully justified) are those who refuse to wear a mask, presenting themselves without airs and graces, exactly as they are. I'm disinclined to call them misfits or underdogs, because, despite being aware that they are most definitely not cool, both Leonard and Hungry Paul are perfectly happy in their own skins and don't feel the need to adapt to suit others.<br /><br />Rónán Hession highlights personal qualities that are so often undervalued - kindness and gentleness - especially in a world where people who lack a competitive edge are often seen as failures. Hungry Paul, in particular, knows exactly who he is, and can sum up exactly what’s important to him.<br /><br />One of the things I loved about the book was that the author didn't attempt to explain everything. We never learn how Hungry Paul earned his nick-name. There are no descriptions of him being thin or fat, or whether he was once fat and is now thin. It may be that Paul himself isn't aware of the reason. Perhaps it’s the legacy of some long-forgotten incident.<br /><br />So many moments resonated with me. I'm an introvert, one who hasn't been brave enough to drop the mask, but that doesn't mean that I haven't known excruciating moments of social awkwardness. If I'm honest, I am probably closest to Grace, who spends her days being super-efficient at work but needs a boyfriend she can trust enough to be a flake with at home. This was one of the observations I enjoyed the most. I am fortunate enough to have a Leonard.<br /><br />If I were to compare Rónán writing to work produced by other contemporary authors, I would say that it reminded me of Joanna Cannon, Mark Haddon and Sara Baume's. All four have deep empathy and understanding of humanity.<br /><br />The world would be a better place if we were all to ask ourselves ‘What would Leonard and Hungry Paul do?’ <br />

This book was such an unexpected delight.<br /><br />Leonard and Hungry Paul are two 30ish-year-old bachelors, not exactly go-getters. Leonard has just lost his mother, whom he loved dearly. He feels her loss acutely, the house is empty without her presence. He realises how truly lonely he is and that he's not really living. Aspects of his job as a ghostwriter of encyclopedias and other reference books are starting to bug him.<br />He's grateful to still have Hungry Paul and his wonderful parents as friends. Hungry Paul is a quiet man, who's obsessed with board games. He's always lived with his parents, was never expected to do much or achieve anything. Therefore he obliged. <br />But things are beginning to change. <br />Leonard is interested in a woman at work. <br />Hungry Paul has an unexpected financial windfall and takes on new endeavours.<br /><br />This is a story about late starters finding their place in the world. <br />The writing is sharp, witty, observant, the humour is wry and I found myself giggling and smiling often. <br />I need more books like this in my life.<br />I see the author's got a new book, I'm very keen to read it.<br /><br />John Hopkins was a brilliant narrator. <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />

Sometimes I read works of literature where the characters seem to me to act very aggressively towards others even when they have no reason to, and where the author seems to view this as quite normal. I mention that by way of contrast with this novel, where the two title characters would never intentionally hurt someone else, although they might do so unintentionally, as they struggle with the nuances of human relationships. Leonard and Hungry Paul are both introverted 30-something bachelors who still live in their childhood homes, although Leonard’s parents are dead. Their social life revolves around meeting up with one another to play board games. They are the sort of characters who are often made the butt of the joke in film and literature, although when the author introduces humour in this book, it’s done without cruelty. The novel is based around the idea that the two are faced with major changes in their life. Leonard has the chance of a relationship with a woman, and Hungry Paul has the chance to forge a career.<br /><br />Early on in the book there’s a conversation between Leonard and Paul as they play one of their games, and I found the spoken dialogue a bit forced. It gave me some reservations about what the rest of the book might be like, but I didn’t get the same feeling subsequently, so perhaps I was just taking time to adjust to the author’s style. I also felt that Paul’s parents were a little too perfect, even though I realised the author was deliberately creating characters who cared for one another. <br /><br />On the other hand, there were a couple of humorous incidents that did have me chortling, one when Paul tried to return a box of out-of-date chocolates to a supermarket, the other during the prelude to a date Leonard has arranged with his prospective girlfriend Shelley. I also defy even the most cynical of us not to break into a smile at the events of the last few chapters. Much of the fiction I normally read is bleak. In this book, the nice guys don’t always come last, and even when they do, they’re OK with it.<br />

It will take something incredible to top this as my book of 2019.<br /><br />Flitting throughout from poignant, heartbreaking quietness to the most delicately insightful moments of joyful humour this is a book that should not be categorised. It does not need to fit in to any regular literary category, much like the two main characters throughout, this is a book which knows itself better than any outsider ever could. <br /><br />Beautiful, sweet, and wholesome beyond words. Hession has crafted a delicate little masterpiece.

Now longlisted for the 2020 Republic of Consciousness Prize.<br /><br /><blockquote> <i>Hungry Paul … his best and only true friend. A man who had stood by him through everything and who had always reserved a space in his (admittedly quite) life just for Leonard. Their friendship was not just one of convenience between two quiet, solitary men with few other options. It was a pact. A pact to resist the vortex of busyness and insensitivity that had engulfed the rest of the world. It was a pact of simplicity, which stood against the forces of competitiveness and noise.</i> </blockquote><br /><br />Bluemoose Books is an independent publisher based in Hebden Bridge, West Yorkshire, and describes itself as a “‘family’ of readers and writers, passionate about the written word and stories, [who] delight in finding great new talent.” Admirably in 2020 they have committed to a woman-only list for 2020.<br /><br />This book was one of their 2019 publications – and one which featured in so many 2019 book of the year lists by bloggers/reviewers whose opinions I rate that I had to read it. One I can already see featuring on my 2020 “best of” list.<br /><br />The quiet, unobtrusive and meaning-filled book is the story of two friends – Leonard and Hungry Paul – both quiet 30-ish year old men living quiet, unobtrusive but still meaning-filled lives, still based in their childhood homes. <br /><br />Leonard was “raised by his mother alone with cheerfully concealed difficulty, his father having died tragically during childbirth” (an opening sentence which sets the scene for the gentle and quirky humour of the book – humour which is all the stronger and more admirable for being essentially target -free). <br /><br />His mother quickly identified his character (in a sentence which in turn sets the scene for the strength of the observational writing).<br /><br /><blockquote> <i>“As sometimes happens with boys who prefer games to sports, Leonard had few friends but lots of ideas. His mother understood with good intuitive sense that children like Leonard just need someone to listen to them”</i> </blockquote><br /><br />And the two form a partnership, which ends just before the book starts, with his mother’s death. <br /><br />Leonard, who works writing entries for children’s encyclopedias, recognises that this represents a key turning point in his life and that he has the choice either to retreat further from the world (which he fears will turn him into a grumpy eccentric) or start to carefully engage with it (a path he embarks on when a single mother at work – her child a fan of his work - starts to show interest in him).<br /><br />Hungry Paul lives with his retired parents (his father an economist – which leads to some on point observations about that profession and about The Economist magazine; his mother a teacher). His older sister Grace is away from home and shortly to be married. That marriage gives the book its other main narrative arc – Paul’s family consumed with the preparations for it, and Leonard accompanying him there as his “plus one” (so as to free up the limited spaces for 2 other guests).<br /><br />Hungry Paul is a master and practitioner of silence, mindfulness, pragmatism – living in and for the moment and avoiding commitment and conflict.<br /><br /><blockquote> <i>Though his life had been largely quiet and uneventful, his choices had turned out to be wise ones: he had already lived longer than Alexander The Great, and had fewer enemies too.</i> </blockquote> <br /><br />He works, occasionally, as a casual postman – a job choice which fits his life choices<br /><br /><blockquote> <i>He didn’t have to decide which of a patient’s limbs to amputate first, or where to invest the life savings of a company’s pensioners. There was no pressure to report fourth quarter losses to the “higher ups” in HQ … His job, on the few days he did it. Involved no agonised decisions or regrets that might spoil the conversation over dinner.</i> </blockquote><br /><br />Much of the strength of the book lies in the dynamics between he and his family members <br /><br /><blockquote> <i>The three of them . had always seen themselves as bumpers along the blowing lane for him to bounce between, saving him from mundane dangers and guiding him towards his achievements, modest though they were.</i> </blockquote><br /><br />And the dynamics between the three of them – their roles, interactions worked out over many years but now starting to evolve with Grace’s impending marriage and the retirement of Paul’s parents – an evolution which dawns on Hungry Paul more slowly than Leonard – and which unlike Leonard he seems less immediate need to react to – given his concentration on the present moment rather than the future.<br /><br /><blockquote> <i>But he had now become awakened by the thought that, no matter how insignificant he was when compared to the night sky, he remained subject to the same elemental forces of expansion. The universe, it seemed, would eventually come knocking.</i> </blockquote><br /><br />A (rather odd) email competition and a fortuitous meeting with a master of mime, acts as the first tentative knock of the universe.<br /><br />This is a very enjoyable and well written book – full of pithy but non-cruel observations: <br /><br /><blockquote> <i>Helen and Barbara entered into what Peter called “nattering”, a seamless narrative of personal stories, asides and value judgements, delivered in a point/counterpoint style with each woman taking her turn on the mic, with a seamlessness known only to middle-aged women and gangsta rappers.</i> </blockquote><br /><br />On a simplistic level it could be seen as “up-lit” but it avoids the tropes that seem to have developed in that genre (heavy reliance on co-incidence, sympathetically portrayed but unreliable narrators, and late revelations which are largely down to that unreliability).<br /><br />Leonard and Hungry Paul are not portrayed as flawed or unreliable – on the contrary they have a clarity of understanding due to their clutter-free attitude to life. <br /><br />Two of the set piece conversations in the novel feature them using that clarity to gently unpick the pretentions, attitudes and assumptions of characters dear to them (Leonard to his work colleague and her approach to testing him in their nascent relationship; Paul to Grace about her self-adopted role in the family) – perhaps only weakened by both including a man explaining something to a woman.<br /><br />The limited plot is mercifully free of coincidence or twists – if I had a criticism it would be that some scenes (an out-of-date chocolates incident and a IT-helpdesk colleague) seem to be lifted from a sit-com.<br /><br />The book is perhaps more similar to Toby Litt’s brilliant “Patience”. It is a book which celebrates life and mundanity, gentleness and friendship. <br /><br />As such it acts as a perfect anecdote to the tendency to see unpleasantness as somehow more literary; as one wedding guest says of an attendee on a creative writing course she ran: <br /><br /><blockquote> <i>She was [in her stories] always using phrases like “There was an empty chair by the door”. You know, trying to be depressing, because she thought it was more writerly.</i> </blockquote><br /><br />Highly recommended when you want a reminder that good writing can also celebrate goodness.

Leonard and Hungry Paul are good friends, in their mid-thirties, two quiet and unassuming men who live with their parents and meet once a week to play board games. I know, I know, some of you are thinking that these guys are losers, but that's where you'd be wrong. Because both of these men are happy with their lives just the way they are, and how many of us can say that? Leonard lives with his widowed mother and they are friends and companions who enjoy each other's company. Hungry Paul loves both his parents and wouldn't think of living any other way.<br /><br />All well and good, but life has a way of moving things around on the great cosmic chessboard. People die, or get married, or go away to do other things. People enter your life unexpectedly, and considerations must be made. Expectations change, and for those of us who are quiet and unassuming, this can be daunting and scary. Courage must be found to cope with new ways of thinking and being. Think of the fortitude it takes for a seed to become a flower, leaving it's safe and dark patch of soil to rise toward the sun, knowing that it can be stepped on or picked or experience any number of difficulties in it's short life, but also knowing that the warm sun is worth reaching for.<br /><br />There was so much interior drama in this quiet and unassuming book that I was often on the edge of my seat as I was reading, wanting these men and everyone around them to stay happy. Maybe because real life these days seems to be a mine field, filled with stress and anxiety, a book like this is a balm for the soul. At least it was that way for me.<br /><br />Anytime someone in my town wants to form a Quiet Club, count me in.

<i>”The thing is, as a child the world looked huge, intimidatingly so. School looked big. Adults looked big. The future looked big. But I am starting to feel that over time I have retreated into a smaller world. I see people rushing around and I wonder – where are they going to? Who are they meeting? Their lives are so full. I’m trying to remember if my life was ever like that.”</i><br />- Leonard to his best buddy Hungry Paul, while playing a game of Yahtzee and mulling over the meaning of life.<br /><br />Leonard (ghost) writes for children’s encyclopaedias, which is a job that suits him. He has a love of knowledge, and wants to impart the joy of learning to younger generations. While the words are his, he doesn’t get the credit for them. The kudos are given to the academics overseeing his work. Even the illustrators who provide the pictures for the stories are given more credit than Leonard. He’s a bit of solitary soul (to say loner wouldn’t be fair to him, as he’s not anti-social per se, he simply lacks the need for company). His mother has recently passed, and Leonard is at a complete loss. It’s as if time has stood still.  They shared a home, and she was always busy doing something in the background. They were perfect companions and genuinely enjoyed being with each other. While he didn’t have an active social life, he always had someone there. Now in his mid-30s, he has no idea what to make of his life.<br /><br />The descriptions of his loneliness, and his “sudden” awareness of it, are so sad to read. It’s so hard not to feel sorry for the feelings he is having. Always on the periphery, with that awkwardness many of us feel at times. Oh Leonard!<br /><br />Take this description of a typical morning at work (which made me want to cry into <i>my</i> cup of tea):<br /><br /><i>”Leonard took off his noise-cancelling/society-repelling headphones and went to the kitchenette for a mid-morning cup, even though he always disliked the awkward wait for the water to boil and the prospect of the kettle-related time-killing small talk.<br /><br />In a hurry to get back to his noise-cancelling head-phones, Leonard put away the tea caddy and finished stirring his own palpable milky loneliness.”</i><br /><br />Leonard’s best buddy, with the great moniker of Hungry Paul, is of similar temperament to him. Neither look to external matters to make them happy, they’re more or less content with their lot in life. Paul also lives at home with his folks, and is happy to go with the flow.<br /><br />They meet up regularly, more regularly than most people see their friends. Weekly board games of Scrabble on a Sunday night are a routine. To prep for the working week ahead. Leonard, Paul and Paul’s parents Helen &amp; Peter. Pitting wits against, and <i>talking</i> to each other (imagine!). It’s safe. It’s routine. It’s comfortable.<br /><br /><i>"We live in an age of cacophony."</i><br /><br />With their self-effacing manner, both men tend to fly under the radar. Which in a world filled to the brim with noise, and with way too many extroverts, tends to go against the grain. They haven’t felt the need before to prove their worth. And yet…there’s this sense that maybe, just maybe, there could be <i>more…</i>. That new paths should be taken.<br /><br />A chance meeting with Shelley – the fire warden – at work, has Leonard thinking that there could be something there. That the future could look different. He feels butterflies he hasn’t felt in ages.<br /><br /><i>”Do something, do something, do something, he repeated to himself.”</i><br /><br />And he decides - in a moment of optimism and bravery - that he should write the sort of story that is bubbling away in him. Leonard knows what children that he was like would want to read, and this is what he sets out to create. It only takes meeting the right person at the right time to set off a spark. He puts his heart and soul into the book, even trying his hand at the illustrations. It's a project of love. But then, Leonard has a very important reader in mind.<br /><br /><i>”It was the most beautiful thing he'd ever done, even if it nearly broke him to do it.”</i><br /><br />Hungry Paul wins a competition to suggest a contemporary phrase for email sign offs for the local Chamber of Commerce.  Are things changing for him as well? Where could this lead? Could this be the domino that starts things falling into place?<br /><br /><i>”It had taken someone with the special insight of Hungry Paul to realise the answer to the problem, strange though it seemed, was to get people to do nothing.”</i><br /><br />He has befriended a Mrs Hawthorn, an elderly lady at the local hospital where he and his Mum are volunteers. They go there to chat to the patients and keep them company. Hungry Paul isn't good at small talk, but he and Mrs Hawthorn (who has previously rebuffed all human interaction) are kindred spirits. Happy to sit in contented silence, holding hands even well after she's fallen asleep.<br /><br />My heart!<br /><br />All of this is set against the leadup to the wedding of Grace (Hungry Paul's sister). She worries that one day her beloved brother will become her responsibility, as he's really never had to be completely independent before. Existing from one year to the next, unconcerned by the flow of time.<br /><br />Through the new uncharted events both men are facing, their friendship remains steadfast and true. Both are each other's number one supporter. Never second guessing, never judging.<br /><br />A nice touch is this book has chapter titles! I’ve mentioned this in other reviews, as it’s a style I really love. Whenever I see this, I have to smile. For me, this adds to the warmth of a book. It shows that the writer cares to bring that added attention to their story. Bring back chapter headings (you'll make this little reader very happy).<br /><br />And the cover with the sunfish... Very significant. When someone asks what your favourite fish is, always pick the sunfish.<br /><br />An ordinary book about ordinary events with ordinary people? Don’t be fooled. This will get you in the heartstrings. It's a gentle, lilting story. Kinda sad at times, yet hopeful. It’s most definitely charming. You’ll be both rolling your eyes and wanting to encourage these two friends to find their bliss. It’s quite beautiful. Rónán Hession has created a gem that is as unassuming and powerful as his two characters. It brings home that it’s never too late to change the course of your life. And that still waters run the deepest.<br /><br />There are so many deep ponderings and musings. Possibly unintentionally so. I loved the thought processes of these two.<br /><br /><i>”We are never entirely outside of life's choices; everything leads somewhere.”</i><br /><br />It’s Bianca’s fab review that caught my eye, so thank you to her for shining a light on this little beauty. Please have a read of her thoughts.<br /><br />I discovered while reading this (and trying to find out more about the writer Rónán Hession), that this was published by <i>Bluemoose Books</i> (great name). They have a great range of quirky titles. Well worth having a look.<br /><br /><i>”I feel that if I don’t do something, I’ll just carry on some minor harmless existence.”</i><br /><br />PS: If anyone's organising a Sunday Night Quiet Club, I'm in. I'll bring my sunflower ?

Oh God, I'm the only person on the entire planet who didn't enjoy this book. I didn't believe in Leonard, I didn't believe in Hungry Paul or his smug family. I didn't believe in the competition that Hungry Paul enters, or the way the worthy hospital visits pan out. I didn't believe in those long articulate monologues delivered by Hungry Paul, then Leonard. I didn't believe in a single stilted conversation between any of the book's protagonists. My first instinct was to junk it after the first fifty pages. But I persisted, and finally I did warm - a little bit - to this gentle pair of friends, satisfied with so little. But really .... I could take it or leave it. My loss, obviouly, as so many people seem to have loved this book. Just - not me.

<b>Longlisted for the Republic of Consciousness Prize 2020</b><br /><br />I feel a little mean-spirited giving this book just 3 stars, as it does contain some funny lines, but for me Hession tries just a little too hard to please everyone, making it a little too much like a romcom script for my taste. On the positive side, it is hard not to sympathise with Hession for wanting to create a kinder, gentler world, and characters like his two leads are pretty rare in literature, if all too common in real life - many of the situations they face were very familiar.<br /><br />The central characters of the book are the two friends of the title, both of whom are quiet single men in their 30s. Leonard works as a writer providing text for children's encyclopedias, and has recently lost his mother (as the striking opening line says he has been fatherless almost since birth). Hungry Paul (the Hungry part of the name is never explained, nor are there any behavioural clues to its origin, nor is he ever referred to by name by anyone other than the omniscient narrator, and for me this grated a little) still lives with his parents, and has an occasional job as a casual postman. Leonard regularly visits Paul's house to play board games. <br /><br />The plot is largely about how the two men break out of these limited lives, the three catalysts being Leonard's tentative relationship with a single mother he meets at work, Paul's elder sister's wedding and Paul entering and winning a competition to find a new email signoff line.

As I type, the air conditioner is humming and my 15 ½-year-old dog Maya with chronic kidney disease is dozing in the chair behind me. When the room hits 75 degrees, the AC will turn itself off and it will be completely quiet—even though I live on the Upper West Side of Manhattan which is currently preparing for a blockbuster “Welcome Home NY” concert this evening in Central Park. This morning, as every morning, when I gave Maya her IV drip, both of us went into a peaceful trance; we became one with the saline as it coursed down the line into Maya and I imagined it gently spreading, bathing all her organs with love, leaving happy kidneys before exiting out and back into the earth. When the drip was done, I carried her to the park, put her down, and not even the amplified bass rehearsing on the Great Lawn for tonight’s concert could jar our peace. As we walked at Maya’s now slow-mo speed through the woods, the sound felt like waves in some distant part of an great ocean, gently rocking us as we smelled the trees, listened to the birds, and witnessed a family of raccoons doing their morning ablutions.<br /><br />This is the peace evoked by Ronan Hession’s voice. It’s his voice even more than his story of two single men in their thirties who live their lives as well as they can. This voice comes in at moments when the stillness—of death, of rejection, of nothing at all—takes over. <br /><br />This is the stillness I feel giving Maya her drip. I know she is slowly dying, and I’ve cried. But there is also this almost inexpressible sweetness to this time. There’s the matter-of-factness in the moment when you accept and just live it for as long as it lasts. Hession captured it and makes you feel it in this slow,* wise story.<br /><br />____________<br />*The story is so slow because people relentlessly speak in whole sentences and, toward the end, they seem to recite the kind of stuff you learn after years of psychotherapy or awareness work and meditation. This got a little heavy-handed, but this is a first novel and most of the book is not like that.