Meet Me Under the Westway by Stephen Thompson

A dreary name-drop of a novel

Book Review by Graeme Allister | 11 May 2007
Book title: Meet Me Under the Westway
Author: Stephen Thompson
Do you like to feel smart? Do you laugh louder than you should at the in-jokes in Shakespeare in Love? Do you know your Three Sisters from your Threepenny Operas? Then try Meet Me Under The Westway – it'll suit you like Ian McKellen fits Richard III. Set in the world of London theatre, our guide is undiscovered playwright Jem (who is a male) who harbours dreams of becoming the next big thing. With observations such as "She gives me her customary wink, which I find so erotic I want to reach my hand under the table and part her thighs," Harold Pinter can rest easy. Jem is flat and tedious, with the charm and sparkle of a back-issue of Nuts magazine, and all the more infuriating for considering himself an intellectual heavyweight for knowing who Blanche DuBois is. Having just been dumped and watching his friends succeed where he has failed, it couldn't happen to a more deserving character. A dreary name-drop of a novel, it's a checklist from the hangover of Cool Britannia, with carelessly slotted-in references to the inauthenticity of Notting Hill and the abundance of mockney crime capers dressed up as speaking for the disillusionment of a generation. With too close an eye on Nick Hornby (does a selfish, childish protagonist with an obsession and an uncertain lovelife sound familiar?), Thompson's book is vacuous, derivative and lacks any of the profundity he believes it holds; it reads like a first novelist's first draft. [Graeme Allister]
Release date: May 2007. Published by Black and White Publishing. Cover price £9.99.