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L A U G H T E R C L A S S
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| Food is a recurring theme. One woman resigns her job to concentrate full-time on eating; another stockpiles chocolate HobNobs for her flatful of tame mice; a third gorges herself on grapes, to fill her drab existence with pulsating purple passion. The fact that this feast is imaginary does nothing to dilute its power. In Perriam’s world, fantasy is highly therapeutic. Her quirky but courageous characters build gingerbread houses or castles in the air, to fill the holes in their lives. Many battle with fears and vulnerabilities, or with the absence of long-lost partners, yet still search, heroically, for love. As in her novels, Perriam probes both the angst and the absurdity of the human condition, combining dark incisive humour with a deep compassion for the ‘lost souls’ she depicts. |
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Reviews of Laughter Class
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| Sunday Telegraph: Is there a more optimistic writer than Wendy Perriam? She doles out happy endings like a fairy godmother, insisting that every cloud has a silver lining and that no life is so shrivelled and impoverished that it cannot be renewed and reinvigorated. Perriam remains a writer of great charm and considerable technical skill, crafting well-observed tales in which entire emotional worlds can be glimpsed. The title story, blending humour and pathos, is typically adroit. It takes a seemingly absurd situation - a tutor coaching a group of strangers in the art of laughing - and extracts the kernel of human truth from the demented ho-ho-ho-ing. "Pair-Bond" is another interesting piece. A woman steels herself to tell her husband, recently retired, that she is going to leave him for her younger lover. But, as they walk along a river bank, his twittering about ornithology, his new hobby, inexorably weakens her resolve. A pivotal half-hour in her life is beautifully rendered. Loneliness, in one form or another, provides the leitmotif of the book. A bride-to-be tramps up and down Oxford Street, looking for size 10 white shoes. A divorced man prepares a meal for a woman he hopes to seduce, his bitterness towards his ex-wife venting itself in the quiet fury with which he slices the fat off pork chops. These are sad, sad lives. And perhaps, in contriving happy endings for such a bunch of losers, Perriam is simply expressing an age-old religious truth: that nobody is irredeemable. Daily Mail: "Loneliness is high on Wendy Perriam's agenda. Her protagonists are miserable, sometimes mad, motivated by bizarre yearnings, fettered to dead parents, and tenuously linked to reality. They have flaws: big feet, personality problems, thin skin (in one case literally) to the point of disaster. But the surfaces of the stories in "Laughter Class" are so richly textured, filled with vividly humorous detail, that the result is unexpectedly entertaining." Paul Laffan, writing in The Morley Review: Inadequacy, whether its sufferer senses it or not, always draws Perriam's sympathy. This is both humane and technically astute. A character we sympathise with will keep us reading. There are shades of Dickens in her examination of guilt, as there is more generally in the continued presence in adult life of childhood humiliation... No review of Perriam's writing is complete which omits her humour. Since I have mentioned a similarity to Dickens, it might be useful to add that Perriam's humour is, by contrast, warm not manic, and that this inflects the changes that so often come at the ends of her stories. These are not moral conversions, but something more welcome - the seizing hold of life, the triumph of growth over trauma. The Tablet: The 23 new stories in novelist Wendy Perriam's third collection are set firmly in the contemporary world. But the characters who move through their prosaic settings are surprising indeed, though from the outside they seem merely a little marginalised (the lonely, old, fat or left behind). Yet Perriam's X-ray eyes pierce to their marrow, and her discoveries put the stories in an entirely new context, irradiated with the light of her profound humanity, her sharp comic sense and sometimes her anger. Never predictable, never sentimental, she is a terrific champion of the powers of the imagination to transform individual lives - even though it can all go terribly wrong. Anthea Boulton, Sea of Faith Magazine: "Wendy Perriam's latest book, LAUGHTER CLASS AND OTHER STORIES, fully deserves the kind of critical praise quoted on the book-jacket. As usual, it contains some trademark elements of sex, religion and humour. Above all, though, it seems to me these stories are a heartfelt plea for love, and a warning of the damage and despair that can result from the lack of it ... The use of food to mirror states of mind is typical Perriam. Whether as a substitute for love or a means of control, food spills lavishly through these pages, with all its smells, textures and flavours. Food nurtures, woos, reconciles, repels. A character's relationship with food tells us nearly all we need to know .... Freedom from control, inhibition, social conventions and norms, is another of Wendy Perriam's concerns. So what if the 'caring' daughter wants her mother safely tucked into her soulless, sheltered accomodation? Mum makes a run for it, hitching a lift to Inverness as she's always dreamed of doing ... Wendy Perriam doesn't do moderation. Her characters are driven by desperate needs, which demand resolution. In some cases, this involves healing and reconciliation; in others the neurosis can only be soothed through the power of fantasy. When their situation is too harsh to bear, losers can invent other, better realities for themselves in which they are successful, attractive, loved. As these stories show, the results may be uncomfortable for the rest of us. But then, who is to judge what reality ought to be?" |
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| You can download the complete title story "Laughter Class" below: |
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| "The title story of my new collection arose from a real-life Laugher Class I attended last year. The tutor told us about the huge benefits laugher can bring, both physical and mental, but, like my protagonist, I found it hard to let go. In some ways, laughter is like sex - one has to be able to relax and not care about or looking or sounding stupid at the height of one's transports! I suspect that the voices of my childhood were still warning in my ear, overruling the tutor's: "Don't be vulgar. Don't make an exhibition of yourself. Life is not a laughing matter, but a Vale of Tears." However, the woman in my story does succeed in overcoming a lifetime of seriousness and strictness. It's interesting that writers can often bring about a desired end for their characters that they cannot achieve for themselves. Is that why writing is so wonderfully therapeutic?" |
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• CLICK HERE to download "Laughter Class" (MS Word Document - only 60 kb) |
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(NOTE: This should be readable with most modern computers, however you can download a free Word viewer from Microsoft if required) - - - - - - - - - - - - - - |
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 • See a video of Wendy talking about Laughter Class at meettheauthor.co.uk • You can order this book at amazon.co.uk: |
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© Wendy Perriam 1998 - 2008
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