My Driver by Maggie Gee

Finally, Maggie Gee’s My Driver, bought at the Arvon course last year where Maggie was teaching about writing a novel and I had gone along to seek help with my poetry! That worked and this book worked for me as well. Its very fast, funny, has a great and very real setting, and was a useful companion on flights between London and Edinburgh this week.
Maggie’s characters are all good value, she writes with authority about the English and the Ugandans, about those different countries but I also had a sense that she had been to places in this book, had felt those places through her skin and her heart. Reading this book was like having someone talk to you, a repetition here, a small aside there –the author is in your ear. Each character has their own agenda and Maggie manages to keep this clear and important from beginning to end. A very good read.
Nearly caught up with lots of much neglected tasks on this slow Sunday, might start reading my book group book later on –now that the laundry is in progress and some rather old veg have been turned into some very nice soup.
More about Maggie here http://literature.britishcouncil.org/maggie-gee