One For My Baby: Press views

Is Parsons moving away from Lad Lit?

Press reviews of One For My Baby

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The Times

This latest work is actually a more subtle and intelligent piece than Man and Boy. In fact, those aspects of the book that might resonate with the readers of FHM and Loaded are treated with a sardonic eye. Its real subject is not so much the sexual encounters of its unhappy hero as the painful examination of the pressures of emotional commitment.

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The Observer

It requires a kind of bravery these days to write a kind, warm, affectionate book that doesn't plunge too often into sentimentality. Parsons has shown that it is worth the risk.

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London Evening Standard

Destiny plays a quasi-religious role in this story, and in others like it: the pursuit of happiness takes on the lineaments of a mythological quest, in which the hero must cure himself of his sickness, must throw off his blindfold in order to divine the clues that will lead him out of the maze to claim his prize, contentment. We in the audience watch it all as if from a height, like a spectator sport.

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The Sunday Times

Alfie, like his Old Holborn/Old Spice grandfather, is besotted with Frank Sinatra: "Listening to Sinatra makes me feel as though I am not the only person in the universe who ever woke up to find themselves in some place that they never imagined. Listening to Sinatra makes me feel that I am not so alone. Listening to Sinatra makes me feel more human." (Reading Parsons often gives you that soporific feeling. Reading Parsons has you shrieking "Get on with it." Reading Parsons often strains your patience.)