For a writer who describes her debut novel as “all the worst things that ever
happened to me”, Linda Robertson’s satirical memoir, What Rhymes with
Bastard?, is surprisingly funny.
“I do wince when I read it,” says the punkish brunette, lounging in the
sitting room of a friend’s house in south London. “I kept thinking, ‘Oh,
God, can I really put that in?’ I’ve been unable to sleep sometimes. But
this is my truth. This is what happened.”
What happened is that she fell in love with and married Jack, a sweet but
hopeless dope-smoker, whom she followed to San Francisco in the wake of the
dotcom boom. The books charts a hailstorm of disasters – caused mainly by
his philandering, drug-taking, brawling and general dossing about –
culminating in the tragicomic collapse of their marriage against an
eccentric north Californian backdrop.
“Intimate relationships and sex are much more out on the table over there,”
says Robertson, who still lives in the city. At 35, herself a little outré –
dressed in a bright green minidress and over-the-knee socks – Robertson is
passionate about the accordion (she was named Ms Accordion San Francisco
2004) and the book features a number of songs she has written about her
personal life. Some are satisfyingly lurid, such as one about the time her
former husband, while pursuing a (nonmutual but agreed) open relationship,
sleeps with a transvestite by mistake: “He tore her satin bra off; two boobs
hit the floor.”
“Jack hasn’t seen the book yet,” says Robertson shrugging. “I don’t know how
to get in touch with him. He gave me verbal permission after I told him what
I was doing, so . . . I really don’t know if he would be horrified or think
it was funny.”
One person she regrets being unable to read the book is her mother, who –
spoiler alert – dies in a powerful scene towards the end of the book. “She
always wanted me to write something, but at the same time, I can’t imagine
having written these things if she were alive,” she says. “It is kind of . .
. annoying,” she trails off, playing things down, except for the fact she is
crying. “I’m glad it’s something you found powerful, not melodramatic,” she
says eventually.
No chick-lit froth this. More a didactic confessional, the book touches on
everything a girl learns about boys and life between 15 and 30. Robertson
herself is “a much nicer person to date now. I wish I knew all of this when
I was 15. Now I’m 35 and half-dead, I’m just about ready to get going”.
It’s a clever inversion of the Bridget Jones myth. Sure, it’s full of goofy
incidents, such as the time at Cambridge that she went on a blind date with
Sacha Baron Cohen (“I think he’d been swayed by my self-description as
‘blonde, busty and 6ft tall’), as well as her mother’s daffy interjections:
“But what do [lesbians] do, Linda? Do they use a carrot?” and
“For God’s sake, Linda, sleep with someone before you marry them. You must
know what you’re getting into.” However, instead of just being a funny story
about a girl who makes a fool of herself but gets the guy in the end,
Robertson makes a fool of herself and loses the guy. Ultimately, though, she
is better off without him – and comes off a whole lot better into the
bargain.
“It’s not a revenge book,” she says. “I don’t relate to playing a game to
catch a man. I’m just straightforward.” She pauses. “Of course, I’m not
devoid of being bitchy.” As for Bridget Jones: “I don’t really relate,
because, well, I’m not fat and I don’t smoke.”
Absent, too, are the petty feminine jealousies of typical chick lit. “There
was a point where it was pure vitriol, so I tried to give it more balance,
rather than it be a devil and angel scenario,” she says. For example: “I
used to get angry with the people he was fooling around with, until a friend
pointed out that they were women, too. That really opened my eyes – I had
fallen into that [trap] that men set up for their advantage, [that we should
be angry with our rivals rather than them]. So I progressed quite quickly to
wanting to kill him.”
In the end, Robertson has the last laugh – when her husband leaves her, she
calmly takes up with a Swedish toyboy. “It’s a list of woes, so it came as a
surprise to me that everyone thinks it’s hilarious,” she says. “It really
seemed self-pitying and self-indulgent, but it’s not. Which is a relief.”
Since the book, her love life has, naturally, taken an upswing. “There have
been a few more incidents,” grins the author, who has had a boyfriend now
for 10 months. “One actually included my having to wash my mouth out with
soap.”
Here’s to the next instalment.
What Rhymes with Bastard? by Linda Robertson is out on Tuesday (Fourth
Estate £7.99). To buy it for £7.59, including p&p, call The
Sunday Times BooksFirst on 0870 165 8585 or visit timesonline.co.uk/booksfirst
