Sap Rising

By A.A. Gill

Buchan Gardens is a sedate square in West London. Charles Goodwin the garden committee president would like the garden to stay just the way it is. Lord Vernon of Barnstable the appalling life peer has plans for the garden. Bryony Mullins the gusset-mouthed harridan doesn't give a flying knicker elastic what happens to the garden as long as it's not what Vernon wants. Angel Tenby the sexually organic gardener wants the garden to run free. Mrs Kotzen the neighbour wants the garden to be chic. The vicar wants the garden to be accessible and relevant. Lily Ng the teenage daily would probably think the garden silly if she thought about it at all; she wants to offer sex in lieu of ironing. Mona Corinth the Hollywood legend is dead and may be about to become part of the garden. Iona Wallace is the obligatory love interest. She would like to be a garden: laid forked plucked seeded mulched vigorously pollarded bedded and admired for her natural beauty. The garden wants absolutely nothing at all.

Sap Rising may well be a story about dark dank nature both human and vegetable and our uneasy relationship with the mystic natural forces that move the earth. It may be a parable on the fragile consensus that maintains and tends green England. On the other hand it might just be a farcical love story set in a garden about nothing of any consequence performed by comic grotesques with a lot of swearing and unnatural sex.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0552996793
• ISBN13: 9780552996792
• Release Date: September 1997
• Publisher: Black Swan Books, Limited
• Length: 320 Pages
• Weight: 0.55 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.0" x 7.8"

Customer Reviews

Satire at its sharpest

The travel writer/essayist/foodie A. A. Gill has two novels to his credit -- both brimming with wit and brilliance about British society. This one, set in an upper crust London district, is about a power struggle over a community garden, but is more about British society and its perfect eccentrics than local politics. Gill is pointed and raunchy, at times outrageous, but his satiric sense is right up there with Waugh and other vile bodies. The book is hard to find in the U.S., so grab it if you can find a copy.