Book Review: "A Promising Man" (and About Time, Too) (HarperCollins, 2002) by Elizabeth Young

By Amanda Linsmeier

A Promising Man (and About Time, Too) (HarperCollins, 2002) is a funny British novel by Elizabeth Young. The novel chronicles the life of 29-year old Harriet Grey, a snarky, somewhat insecure woman. Usually Harriet finds herself involved with all of her friends’ dramas, including her roommate Sally who got pregnant after a one-night stand with a married man, Jacko, her close male friend, who is almost like a brother and Helen, who’s got a couple of ungrateful children and an ex-husband who left her for a younger woman. Harriet is putting her dreams on hold to help out her friend Sally and is pretty much plodding through life when she sees an old friend from school. Nina was (and still is) beautiful, with “silk-curtain hair” and a bright little laugh. While they were never close friends, they did associate and Harriet always felt that Nina was better than her. When Harriet meets Nina’s current man, John, and he helps her out after she loses her purse, it is just another injustice to her. Why should Nina have a man like him? When she offers to pay John back for his kind gesture to her, he says yes and Harriet feels guilty and surprised. But it’s just drinks, right? The thing is, Harriet and John are perfect for each other. Both are smart-mouthed and witty with some definite vibes going on below the surface. Throw in a couple of gossipy girls, some long-standing jealousy and even a private investigator and you’ve got trouble. A Promising Man (and About Time, Too) had me rooting for Harriet and John.

Alright, so I had a little (sometimes a lot of) trouble with the slang. I’ve read other books by British authors but for some reason, this novel laid it on pretty heavily. How about “kneesie under the table would have been a doddle” or “whether ‘er indoors would have given their pottage to the pig” as two such examples? Scattered throughout the novel, these types of sentences were a bit confusing to me. On a positive note, I still enjoyed reading the book. I laughed out loud a couple of times and possibly even snorted once or twice. I loved John and I almost wanted to smack Harriet for not seeing how great he was. It was frustrating but typical for her to question everything about him. I melted when they finally got together and I also loved the parallel stories happening with the other characters in the novel. A Promising Man is a fun, light-hearted story about a woman who has exactly what she wants- and then questions and doubts it. I would definitely read another book by this author, only after purchasing a British slang dictionary first!