I can understand why this book had mixed reviews. I read just a few pages at a time as a rest from my novel, but on it's own it may have been a trial. Nina Stibbe is twenty and has left her home in Leicester to work as a live in nanny. Her employer is Mary-Kay Wilmers (deputy editor of the London Review of Books) who lives with her two sons in a big house in Gloucester Crescent in a particularly nice part of Camden. Alan Bennett lives next door! He actually appears many times as he often has dinner with the family.
The book is made up purely of Nina's letters to her friend Victoria back in Leicester. So an educated household. The boys are Sam and Will Frears (yes, sons of the film directer Stephen Frears) and a neighbourhood of arty types. Just reading the list of characters at the beginning made me gasp. Nina tells us "they are always laughing" and "people come round loads". All huge material for these letters and great fun for us. So much are actual conversations that Nina quotes verbatim. I have never laughed so much:
Talking with Alan Bennett at dinner about Jim'll Fix it and asking what he would choose to do. He would think about it. Sam says he could have tea with chimpanzees. He answers "I already do". This is all in Part 1 from 1982 to 1984, after which in Part 2, Nina moves out to study at Thames Polytechnic and lives in Mary Hope's house in Regent's Park Terrace. But she still seems to visit Gloucester Crescent, almost as if she still lives there even though another nanny is in residence. I found this later section far less amusing and interesting than the first. The stuff she writes about college is just not the same. And the only reason why I did not give it five stars.
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