Mavis Cheek's end of the millenium novel on sexual freedom

The dedication "to the honourable women and men of this planet who struggle and may fail but who nevertheless attempt the good" is a hint to the sweep of Mavis Cheek's thought provoking novel, Aunt Margaret's Lover, published in 1994. 

I'm ashamed to admit it's the first of her novels I've read but I'll be looking for more because I couldn't put it down. It's not just that it's funny and modern, covering sexual politics and single parenting, but it's shot through with tragedy, a healthy loathing of the rich who collect art as an investment and a clear-eyed view of how we muddle through. 

I am glad I refused to let a Daily Mail quote on the front cover put me off. There are several different covers for this book - QE1 is the one I found, but others highlight the personal ad much of the story's based on. I am glad I was so desperate to read something funny that I found Mavis Cheek. She knows about the art world - look at her website - and she is a champion of good writing as opposed to celebrity. There is a difference. In fact, she's a founder of "the Marlborough Literature Festival which aims to put authorship, rather than celebrity, back at the heart of literature festivals."

For that alone, I am on the verge of writing a fan letter. And because she has been a Royal Literary Fund fellow, I feel a sense of being in the same community, although certainly not at the same level. 

I'm sure she has masses of fans and people who would be surprised how late I've discovered her, but I'll shout it here, she's one of the best. Aunt Margaret's Lover centres on a woman's hunt for a lover for a year, April to April. And it's superb. I won't be putting this back in the charity bag. Aunt Margaret is a self-taught picture framer, a woman who brings up a child alone, and she has informed views about the art world. 

The novel's worth reading for one early scene at a gallery alone, when Aunt Margaret and a wealthy woman collector trying out her new electric wheelchair, disagree about Picasso's late etchings. These feature strongly in the novel too, adding a brilliant focus for commentary on people with money. 

Ignore the reviews putting it in the category of light summer reading, it's furious, damning, complex, subversive and feminist and in a interview on her work, Cheek herself says, " I’m a feminist to my bones without even trying. Girls are doing brilliantly at school and university but that’s still not reflected in the balance of the world. Look at Zaha Hadid – who was virtually number one in a field of one so far as great women architects were concerned, and boy she paid for it."

She adds, "I’ve fought my battles over the years with The Great Unliberated Male – and I’m a little bit tired of it."

I haven't been as delighted or surprised by a novel for a long time. It seems to me there are women  expressing what matters who must be sought out. 

Her website's fabulous, especially the bit about comedy women in print and how women writers are dismissed or sidelined, or their books are bought by men for their girlfriends, wives, sisters etc. etc.