Hilarious from beginning to end and most of the way through ( )

One of the funniest books I have ever read, starting from the very first sentence or two sentences: `When Auntie Edna fell off the bus, she landed on her pate and remained unconscious for sixty-three days. At the end of this period she died, and they had a funeral'. ( )

The late Peter Tinniswood's first novel about the Brandon family is nothing like the BBC sitcom 'I Didn't Know You Cared' which was somewhat loosely based on it (by Tinniswood himself). And I'm not surprised. Carter Brandon's internal conversations with the baby Daniel, and the stange powers the child seems to have, are very surreal and strangely disturbing. The BBC would never have understood it (and I'm not sure I do, either). This part of the story is very much at odds with the rest, a comic kitchen-sink family drama set in a thinly disguised Sheffield. Tinniswood had a wonderful ear for dialogue, and a nice line in descriptive prose, but I'm not sure the Daniel business works, or what it's supposed to mean. Very odd. Aye, well, m'm. ( )