Driving Big Davie

by Colin Bateman
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This is my first encounter with Dan Starkey and my first book by Colin Bateman. The back cover blurb promised a combination of Irish wit and a Florida setting – how could I resist?

Dan Starkey has clearly been through a lot, and perhaps all his past adventures are described in earlier books. In this one however, he finds himself pretending to cope and moving on with his life. He has been reduced from being a journalist to working on a PR-project for the city of Belfast. He is attending court appointed counselling sessions. But he is reunited with his wife Patricia, which is all well enough, except that having a child together proves not to be as easy as one might hope.

And then Joe Strummer of The Clash dies and Dan’s best mate from the punk era; Big Davie, calls up. When Dan and Big Davie gets plastered together in their old home town Dan finds himself agreeing to go along on a two week vacation to Florida. Big Davie has, Dan is being told, been dumped and is left standing with already paid for tickets to the honeymoon.

Already on the flight Dan starts noticing inconsistencies in Davie’s story and once in Florida the trip turns into something completely different from a relaxing two weeks in the sun.

Through the first few chapters I couldn’t have been more pleased with myself for having picked up this book. The narrative was quick and funny, the types of word play and association digressions I really like, as well as references that I could relate to. But then further in the book Dan started to jump to conclusions and taking actions that really irked me, and I felt that there wasn’t really any storyline to hold the on their own funny episodes together. I also felt that some issues brought up in the book where far to tragic to be dealt with so flippantly.

But then the book sort of turned around again on me and I got back into it as a whacky ride. Also what had been dismissed a bit glibly was exposed to have more depth and importance, giving the book a bit more of the same.

As I put the book down I was quite happy having spent time reading it. I’ll probably be reading another Colin Bateman. I will not go looking for the earlier Dan Starkey novels though, at least not for a while. This is mostly because I feel in some ways that this book is more like a chapter in the life o Dan Starkey than a stand alone book. So much was revealed about his past life and adventures that I feel I will know how the earlier books ends even before reading them.