Whatever Makes You Happy
by William Sutcliffe

Release Date: 5th May 2008
Publisher: Bloomsbury
ISBN: 978 0 7475 9364 5
RRP: Ł10.99

Simultaneously moving and excruciatingly uncomfortable, Sutcliffe redefines what it means to get up close and personal to characters.

This seemingly benign tale of three mothers out to get their three sons (who they believe are stalling in life) back on track, is full of wonderful sound bites and strangely familiar dialogue as parent and child dance around each other.

The three mothers are in collusion. They are all to swoop down on their unsuspecting sons for a week. Each mother has her own personal challenge, unique to their familial relationship and each tackles the obstacle of their son in their own way. And what is so wrong with these wayward sons? Matt works for a man’s magazine and has as much respect for women as a gnat has for having a quick suck at your blood. Paul is so secretive and subversive that he still hasn’t come out to his mother, has had a child with a lesbian couple and has been dating Andre (who is perfectly nice) for a few months – unbeknownst to Helen. And Daniel, well, he just got his heart broken and decided to run away to Edinburg but instead of getting over it, appears to have shrunken, introverted and bitter.

Sutcliffe writes with a level of insight that is awe inspiring and unsettling. Turning the lens onto modern family life, magnifying the sharp notes and the flats, and stretching the canvas of ordinary lives so that they become painfully (at times) transparent to the reader.

Whatever makes you happy is at once a parody of the generational gap in the 21st century and a heart-warming story about mothers who love their sons, which could be construed as a bit confusing and at odds with each other. That may be true, but it works.

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