If you’re a big fan of Sebastian Faulks, then be prepared: this is definitely not one of his usual offerings. Better known for thoroughly decent main characters like Charlotte Gray who risks all for love and adventure during World War II in the book of the same name, he’s turned a corner with Mike Engleby. Well, it’s more of a u-turn, really.
From the word go, Mike Engleby does not strike the reader as being thoroughly decent. It’s the 1970s and Engleby, who hails from a poor working-class family, has won a scholarship to an ancient English university. He’s got what my mum would call an “unfortunate manner”. He thinks his brain is much finer than anyone else’s, doesn’t have friends and spends most of his time on his own in the pub.
When perky fellow student Jennifer, the object of Engleby’s unrequited affection, goes missing, the reader can only gulp and wait for him to confess to having had something to do with it. But Engleby seems as mystified as anyone else. In fact, he gets on with his life and over the years becomes a successful London journalist. But his university days come back to haunt him.
I ripped through it and I bet that if you don’t love it as much as Charlotte Gray, you will know someone like Engleby. I can think of at least one: slightly rat-faced and out of place, distinctly superior but astonishingly able to get a girlfriend. The sort of bloke you know is not thoroughly decent and has a closet full of skeletons, yet nobody else seems to notice. You will look at your own Mike Engleby differently after you have read this book.
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