Book of the Week
Queen Camilla
A mixed review for this comic novel.
By Sue Townsend
I’m a big fan of comic fiction and I’m always on the lookout for new authors. Sue Townsend seemed like a safe bet to try next. I’d never read her Adrian Mole books or Queen Camilla’s predecessor, The Queen and I but they were so well known I was surprised I had not thought to read them before. I chose Townsend’s newest novel Queen Camilla and I have to say I was a little disappointed as the premise had offered so much. The present Prime Minister is the jaded Jack Barker who is primarily responsible for declaring England a republic and electronically tagging and banishing the Royal family to a privately run ‘exclusion’ zone, along with 6 million other ‘undesirable’ citizen’s. Now he wants to lose the next election by introducing even more bizarre and restrictive measures such as banning dogs and stepladders. The New Conservatives party leader believes he can win by promising to restore the monarchy. Faced with this new possibility, the Royals must decide who could reign – Elizabeth or Charles. To complicate matters, it seems that Camilla and Charles have an illegitimate child from before either of their first unhappy marriages, who has grown up to be a rather unpleasant occupational safety officer called Graham. The exclusion zone offers up plenty of appealing but troubled characters, including a local policeman who sympathises with the inhabitants and the object of his affection, a high-school dropout and single mum to her baby she named ‘Fifty-Cent’ among others. Charles’ young Princes are yobbish louts, no one likes Princess Michael of Kent and Charles himself would rather just stay put and tend to his garden. His dogs meanwhile are well informed as to what the new legislation will mean for them and are puzzled as to why their owners wont listen to them. These are all great ideas, but as a whole I felt it fell somewhat flat. Although the book is funny in its absurdness, I must admit I was expecting a little more from an author I had heard so much about. Perhaps I have been spoiled by the recent company of novels by Jasper Fforde and Christopher Moore, but there was enough here for me to try another one of her novels.
Jaime Ward
Library Assistant
7 August 2007
