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The International Gooseberry | 
| Author: Ben Hatch
Publisher: Orion
Category: Book
New (6) Used (44) from £0.01
Avg. Customer Rating:  21 reviews
Sales Rank: 360479
Media: Paperback
Pages: 320
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 7.6 x 5 x 1
ISBN: 0752843850
Dewey Decimal Number: 813
EAN: 9780752843858
ASIN: 0752843850
Publication Date: November 1, 2001
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| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.co.uk Review
Kit Farley, at the centre of Ben Hatch's The International Gooseberry, has turned drifting into an Olympic sport. After an unsatisfying career as TV reviewer for the Bucks Chronicle, he walks away from the mouldy remains of his friendships and his love affairs and hits the road. Playing the reluctant gooseberry to Carlos--a best mate becoming less matey by the minute--and Carlos's emotionally unstable girlfriend Dominique, Kit embarks upon a back-packing odyssey whose only limits are dwindling funds and the need to get back in time for his Dad's wedding. Stranded in a hinterland of flop-houses populated by drawling surf-bums, pursued by e-mails from his worried family, Kit finally realises that the only thing he's running away from is himself.One of the great things about travel is that you can never truly predict where you're going to end up. The same could be said of this outstanding work by Ben Hatch. It has all the trappings of a laddish coming-of-age yarn--replete with its pointless jobs, nightmare flat-shares, difficult girlfriends and uneasy nihilism. But what upgrades this novel into the First Class lounge is its sharply truthful treatment of relationships. The close bond between Kit and his brother Danny, ruptured by an event of heart-rending sadness, is the true driving force of the novel--a rich seam of emotional honesty underpinning its most comic moments. This is men's writing at its finest--an On the Road minus the drugs and with an admirable degree of heart. --Matthew Baylis
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| Customer Reviews: Read 16 more reviews...
 Needs a read! June 24, 2005
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
I picked up this book as a quick holiday read when desperate in Wales. How much I would like it completely surprised me. Incredibly funny and yet also very touching and sad, I really think this book needs to be read and would recommend it to anyone!
 Good Reads June 12, 2005
A funny but also moving story told in easy to read journal entries about a messed guy, Kit, going travelling with his best friend and his best friend's French girlfriend. The entries are interspersed with emails home and this is where the funniest relationship unfolds - between Kit and his brother. It takes a while to realise there is more to this slacker tale of lost jobs and relationship break up and by then you're so hooked into the first person narrative it means although the travel entries are the funniest it's the home back-story before Kit went travelling that grips the most. I really enjoyed the way the story unfolded in this way. I thought The Lawnmower Celebrity was funnier (Hatch's first novel) but that this had more depth and seemed also easier to relate to even though I haven't been travelling around the world. If you like this I would also recommend William Sutcliffe's travel novel - Are you Experienced. It is equally as funny. I haven't given International Gooseberry five stars because I would have liked a longer ending. For me it finished rather sharply and I would have preferred it to have spooled on for a little longer after Kit's return home maybe. Excellent nevertheless.
Enjoyable read February 12, 2005
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
A very easy, but intelligent read. Funny as well. It's about travelling round the world yet also about family dynamics and being the odd one out. I loved the relationship between the two brothers. It's worth it for that alone. Did put me off backpacking though.
 disappionting October 29, 2004
3 out of 4 found this review helpful
I found this book tremendously disappointing, not least because it had started so well, with some great witty observations and Hatch's writing style had me hooked from the word go. However as the tale unfolded both the story itself and the initial sparkling prose seemed to lose their way as the central character turned more moribund. The story is basically a rites of passage of a mid-twenties ex geek turned Mr. cool as he sets out on a round the world trip, which incidentally we are told precious little of, especially as it turns out to be a bit of a flop. What I found disappointing was the way in which Hatch tried his best to make the central character (Kit) a sympathetic figure, trying to come to terms with a family tragedy, when actually I read him as a complete prat who after "the incident" turns into a bleeding heart and spends the best part of a year wallowing in self pity, perhaps he was the only person on the planet to have suffered such a tragedy? To the extent that after a few months of moping around the house he is upset when his girlfriend leaves him for another man. I also found Hatch's treatment of the few female characters in the book fairly ungenerous. Kit's mother is written out at the beginning with hardly a mention, his girlfriend is continually criticised as being a child to Kit's adult when it is she who does her best to pick up the pieces and carry on with her life, and the only other woman, a French femme fatale, is Prozac popping enigma who seems to be there only to be the cause of a break up in the friendship of Kit and Carlos, perhaps Hatch has read too much Dickens? Overall, as I said at the start, having started well it petered out to the point that I couldn't put it down so that I could go away and read something far more interesting.
Bittersweet comedy with hilarious backpacker putdowns July 19, 2004
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Just the best book to have under your arm when you walk into that Sydney backpackers thinking you know it all. First rate characters that are realistic and funny without being hyperboles, spot on dialogue and a great story too. Past several hours reading this one on a boat in the Whitsundays howling like a sick monkey.
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