Gil Hates Everything

“The Elected Member”, by Bernice Rubens.

Well, I didn’t like this at all. We are confronted with our first family novel, and again, it’s all talk and no sense. Sigh. This is why Gil Hates Literature

I will attempt to summarize. A Jewish family in the East End has a problem son, who has gone from child prodigy to successful barrister to insane recluse, imagining his room filled with silverfish. He can barely cope with life, and eventually his father has him committed, except then the father regrets it and worries himself to death over the course of a few visits. Meanwhile the daughter, who was infantilized by the now-dead mother in service to promoting the son, is… actually, you know, I can’t be bothered. It’s all very seedy and frankly implausible, I didn’t care for it in the slightest, and I was glad it ended quite quickly, although it was most unfair that the father died.

So we have two annoying washouts and one okay romp so far.