Lecturer Jim Cockburn (pronounced: Coburn) has a problem: unless he can scrape together £85,000 he'll have to move to Muswell Hill. Having promised fearsome Bavarian partner Ingrid he’ll scrape together the deposit on a house near the Free School in NW1 so his kids can attend a better school, Jim finds his hours reduced due to Brexit. Then his dear old mum, who’d seemed to be on her last legs, goes into remission – and, selfishly, on a bucket-list world tour, where she begins spending his inheritance with unseemly relish.
Having seen the wholly negative effect attending the local comp had on his oldest son Jim is determined the same fate won’t befall his younger kids, but a series of economic body-blows (and increasingly poor decisions) conspire to leave him unable to buy a new place near the Free School: and Muswell Hill looms on the horizon like a sort of dreary Xanadu.
Then an unpleasant incident on holiday in France allows Jim to briefly take control of his destiny. Reluctantly - though not very, TBH - he becomes a middle class mugger who only (well, mostly) attacks “deserving” targets so he can continue to purchase the Camembert he loves. Though mostly to avoid moving to Muswell Hill.
KIDOLOGY is a dark, modern morality tale about the lies we tell ourselves and each other. Mostly, though, it sets out to answer the most pressing question of our age: What would you do to get your children into a better school?
With influences including Breaking Bad, Falling Down, The Royal Tenenbaums and Peep Show, this is a Hampstead Kitchen Novel for the “50 Shades” generation: a scatological satire for the Tweenies by the author of the acclaimed “Fire Horses” and “Out of Office”.
Use the search term #KidologyQuotes to read one hundred samples from the novel – or visit my Facebook page at:
“More twists than a pig’s cock” – DJ Taylor
