Ladies and Gentleman let me introduce to Barrington Jedidiah Walker. He ain’t no homosexual, he’s Barrysexual (or Mr Loverman to you and me).
Mr Loverman – the blurb
Barrington Jedidiah Walker is seventy-four and leads a double life. Born and bred in Antigua, he’s lived in Hackney since the sixties. A flamboyant, wise-cracking local character with a dapper taste in retro suits and a fondness for quoting Shakespeare, Barrington is a husband, father and grandfather – but he is also secretly homosexual, lovers with his great childhood friend, Morris.
His deeply religious and disappointed wife, Carmel, thinks he sleeps with other women. When their marriage goes into meltdown, Barrington wants to divorce Carmel and live with Morris, but after a lifetime of fear and deception, will he manage to break away?
Pass me a rum
What a character Barry aka Mr Loverman is. Confident in his skin (or his 1950s suits) he is loud, the soul of the party and believes there is nothing rum can’t make better. Evaristo always maintains this even whilst digging around into Barry’s past and secret double life. Sure he goes on a journey but it is always rum soaked.
Rum soaked he may be but I struggled at times to truly love Barry. He was this big personality who had to hide the love of his life from those closest to him (certain moments between him and Morris were truly poignant). Yet Evaristo would have him go do something like his park dalliances that made you dislike him. Then he would do something like look after his baby and you would like him again. Showing his wife, Carmel’s, side of things also gave the book a really good balance. She wasn’t just a religious battle axe. She was suffering too at the hands of a man who systematically cheated on her for decades. That’s another cross against Barry’s name then.
All those years
It was really interesting to read about Britain’s older Caribbean community, a topic I really enjoyed. The book was funny yet had more depth than your average from the genre. Overall though I was left with a sense of wastefulness. Sure it had an upbeat ending, but so many characters in the story wasted so many years of their lives. I’m not just talking about the obvious Barry, Carmel, Morris here. Barry’s daughters too are prime examples of waiting for a perfect man or a perfect career. Evaristo tried to counterbalance this with insight into the culture of Barry’s community and life in London for gay men, yet I still came away feeling they had all lost something – time.
Don’t get me wrong I did really enjoy the book. It was very visual and would make a great film. Although I have to say my family are getting a bit sick of me shouting ‘Shabba’ randomly at them due to the fact the song Mr Loverman is now permanently stuck in my head!
