With One Lousy Free Packet of Seed by Lynne Truss

Val Penny ♦ December 28, 2013 ♦ 1 Comment

Lynne Truss was born in England on 31 May 1955.  She is a writer, journalist, and broadcaster.  She started out as a literary editor but got sidetracked. Truss is the author of three novels and numerous radio comedy dramas.   She spent six years as the television critic of The Times in London, followed by four years as a sports columnist for the same newspaper.

Lynne Truss also hosted Cutting a Dash which was a popular BBC Radio 4 series about punctuation. She now reviews books for the Sunday Times and is a familiar voice on BBC Radio 4. Truss lives in Brighton, England.  Her best known book is entitled Eats Shoots and Leaves. 

This book, With One Lousy Free Packet of Seed,.is an old-fashioned farce, in the classic tradition, set in relatively modern-day England.  It is meant to be funny but I cannot say I found it very amusing.

I appreciated some of the literary conceits, for example, at the end, when Truss uses an outside character to resolve a recurring plot point, but acknowledges the cheat openly by having one of the main characters ask that outside character, “Sir, have you ever heard the theatrical expression deus ex machina?” 

However, I found the book really is a bit lame. The construct and characterisation is very reminiscent of Tom Sharpe but not nearly as clever. The farce reaches extreme proportions whilst the author’s personal predilection for grammatically correct English is ever present. You cannot but help identify the character Michelle as her alter ego.

The book was undemanding and would probably serve as a piece of lightweight escapism on holiday.  However, I think I would probably leave it in my hotel rather than carry it home again.