Advertising helps fund Big Issue’s mission to end poverty
Special offer: Receive 12 issues for just £12!
Subscribe today
Books

The Painter's Friend by Howard Cunnell: 'Too often drifts into the obscure'

A novel which could have worked, but the plot line was too one-sided and the characters were verging on being dull and even tedious, writes Patrick Maxwell.

Howard Cunnell’s The Painter’s Friend is powerful – though not so much in keeping you hooked as sending you straight into blissful sleep. It gives us the tale of Terry, whose violent past lands him in a community of islanders passing their days in riverside boats, under the eye of an ambitious landlord, Alex Kaplan, eager to regenerate the place and remove his impoverished tenants. Cunnell tries to construct a clear narrative for us: a poor, friendly, bedraggled and ill-treated community fighting against the nasty landlord trying to chuck them out of their houses.

Books 1473
The Painter’s Friend by Howard Cunnell is out now (Pan Macmillan, £16.99) Image: Waterstone

It could have worked, if done with a less tendentious plotline and more interesting characters. Instead, Cunnell makes us endure his own crude prose, with speech marks taken out (too bourgeois, I imagine) and the thoughts and words of the characters seemingly interchangeable. The capacity for an unremarkable sentence is incredible, which makes the at first endearing figure of Terry become ever more tedious, as do the various tales of drunken fathers, drowned sons, and murdered dogs. Cunnell’s writing has an unmistakable clarity, even poignancy at times. But it too often drifts into the obscure and the irrelevant, and it’s ending seems half-baked and bitter.

Spare yourself.

The Painter’s Friend by Howard Cunnell is out now (Pan Macmillan, £16.99)

Advertising helps fund Big Issue’s mission to end poverty

SIGN THE PETITION

It's our call to Keir Starmer to pass a law to end poverty.

Recommended for you

View all
Top 5 spy books for kids, chosen by Cecily Sawyer author Iona Rangeley
Books

Top 5 spy books for kids, chosen by Cecily Sawyer author Iona Rangeley

Moderation by Elaine Castillo review – modern love story falls short
Books

Moderation by Elaine Castillo review – modern love story falls short

It's Terrible the Things I Have to Do to Be Me by Philippa Snow review – insights into female celebrity
Books

It's Terrible the Things I Have to Do to Be Me by Philippa Snow review – insights into female celebrity

Top 5 books for children under eight, chosen by author Truly Johnston
Books

Top 5 books for children under eight, chosen by author Truly Johnston

Most Popular

Read All
Renters pay their landlords' buy-to-let mortgages, so they should get a share of the profits
Renters: A mortgage lender's window advertising buy-to-let products
1.

Renters pay their landlords' buy-to-let mortgages, so they should get a share of the profits

Exclusive: Disabled people are 'set up to fail' by the DWP in target-driven disability benefits system, whistleblowers reveal
Pound coins on a piece of paper with disability living allowancve
2.

Exclusive: Disabled people are 'set up to fail' by the DWP in target-driven disability benefits system, whistleblowers reveal

Cost of living payment 2024: Where to get help now the scheme is over
next dwp cost of living payment 2023
3.

Cost of living payment 2024: Where to get help now the scheme is over

Strike dates 2023: From train drivers to NHS doctors, here are the dates to know
4.

Strike dates 2023: From train drivers to NHS doctors, here are the dates to know

Support our vendors with a subscription

For each subscription to the magazine, we’ll provide a vendor with a reusable water bottle, making it easier for them to access cold water on hot days.