From the look of the front cover, you might be fooled into thinking that Martin Amis’ The Pregnant Widow is a fun holiday read, but nothing can be further from the truth. It’s laborious, pretentious (although equally it lampoons pretension to an extent), and much less entertaining than it leads you to believe.
The title should have been the first clue, being a description of the change in social order from the 70’s to the present day, but the reality is that The Pregnant Widow is bunned up with annoying characters, an increasingly disheartening story and a wavering lack of connection to society as a whole.
Though there is intelligence and smarts in abundance throughout the book, there is also a churn of prose and storyline that lacks interest. However, despite this, there are the odd one or two gems scattered throughout it, and we’re not just referring to the descriptions of Sheherezade’s sunbathing. The question is whether or not the rest of the novel is worth bothering with to find them.
The story begins with Keith Nearing on a long summer stay in a castle in Italy with wealthy friends. So far, so disconnected. Though, his own past is much less fanciful than those around him, the issues surrounding this seem much more like an offshoot than a root. It leaves you with only the escapist fancy of the novel and that balloon is slightly punctured too with only a bitter path to nowhere for the storyline.
There’s clumsy comedy with Adriano, the diminutive Italian toff that unwittingly competes with Keith for the attentions of Sheherezade (the blond goddess friend of his girlfriend Lily). There’s debauchery too, as Keith tries his nonchalant wooing, but it’s written with so much drab delivery that it almost seems tedious, despite it’s unexpected final incarnation.
The Pregnant Widow ends much worse than it begins, despite the final couple of pages’ salvaging lines. With a bit more sharp and a bit less smart, it could have been great, but sadly it doesn’t quite hit the mark it seemingly set its sights on.
The Pregnant Widow review: 2/5
