Simon Carr: The boys are back in town

Hutchinson $39.95

Review: David Hill

The situation approaches the ultimate in male bonding: three guys from two generations, including sons from two marriages.

It started for Simon Carr when his second wife died from cancer, a time which he writes about with controlled agony in the book's best, bleakest pages.

Straight after her death, he loaded 5-year-old Alexander into the car and took off around New Zealand. His small son's grief kept breaking out; Carr began dealing with it through intuitive, big, dumb, physical affection.

They moved from Hawkes Bay to Auckland, which Carr rather liked. If good manners cost money, Aucklanders would have them. Then Hugo, from his first marriage, arrived. Suddenly, they were three.

So what was distinctive about a household of males? Well, its younger members sometimes wiped their faces with the dog. They sat on the windscreen while being driven to the beach. They played in the park with a father who did a brilliant child-molester impersonation.

Yes, it does curve into cuteness on occasions. And into smugness. Carr is disingenuously wide-eyed at how mothers worry so much. He scores a lot of little triumphs, especially over his first wife. He notes how respectable women can't understand how his boys are so nice.

But as you would expect from this former Independent columnist, he writes about it splendidly. He is sharp, immediate, stylish. He's open to astonishment, and narrates a son's birth with delight and fury.

He took his two kids back to Oxford. (He skips hemispheres quite a bit.) Here, the discoveries and aphorisms continue. After benign neglect, money is the most under-estimated therapy.

Alexander and Hugo grow, into adolescence in the latter's case. This - gosh - brings a whole new set of hassles. Carr never quite reconciles himself to No 1 Son's video games where you shoot people's heads off and play soccer with the result.

He worries occasionally about the maternal influence his boys won't experience. About what to do when your 5-year-old wants a bath with Daddy. About ethics: are the Ten Commandments still obligatory study for kids?

He comes to a fuzzy, happy ending. By then, you will be in no doubt that he loves his sons and he's done all right by them. That's a pretty satisfactory way to finish up.

* David Hill is a Taranaki writer.