The Amateurs

✍ Scribed by Niven, John

• Book ID: 109196903
• Publisher: Random House
• Year: 2009
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 179 KB
• Category: Fiction
• ISBN-13: 9780061991165

✦ Synopsis

To enjoy Niven's third book (after Kill Your Friends) you don't have to shank balls at St. Andrews or even watch golf on the telly. You needn't suffer a roiling case of Tourette's, as the book's 33-year-old hero, Gary Irvine, does. You don't need to share his more embarrassing affliction, Kluver-Bucy syndrome, which drives him into onanistic convulsions at inopportune moments. To appreciate this romp through the bunkers and rough of family life in Ardgirvan, Scotland, one need only appreciate the Scottish sensibility that links together sport, family, gangland violence, and amazing strings of profanity. Lovers of lad lit will especially relish Gary's struggle to smooth a swing that has "more moving parts than Terms of Endearment," though there's more at stake than a scratch handicap: Gary's ne'er-do-well brother, Lee, sinks deeper into debt with thug Ranta Campbell while Gary's bootylicious wife, Pauline (with an arse "Ye could sit yer pint oan"), wanders away from the fairway in search of a life bigger than her husband can provide. By the close, more than one person's fate is decided at the end of a gold club.