Belts, collars, and a Swarovski-encrusted whip. Don’t be fooled by the frumpy cover art. This is the tale of a midlife love affair between two well-heeled London artsy types that swiftly descends into under-negotiated kink and trips to the tawdry sex parties of Woking, Datchet and Dagenham, “where taxi drivers in PVC harnesses look them up and down the minute they arrive”.
Despite the Larkin needle drop of the title, Howard Jacobson’s 16th is more a story of lust than of love. Award-winning TV producer Lily, fresh from a humiliating attempt to resuscitate her sexless relationship with long-term partner Hal via a game of strip Scrabble that turns pedantic, is poleaxed by her first meeting with Sam and his wafting pheromones. “An affair,” she notes by chapter two, “stinks to high heaven”.
