Rum Blazer 2: April 26th

April 26th saw the creation of four more masterpieces, summarised in 50-100 words. As follows:

Chief Matthews (title JM, text NM)
A post-modern, post-imperial modern comedy classic, this best-selling work challenges liberal sensibilities with its shaggy dog story of the life of Evan Matthews, a Welsh blackface entertainer popular in the 60's. As his act becomes unacceptable to domestic audiences in the 1990's, Matthews resigns himself to an impoverished and obscure retirement. His relationships are beginning to suffer when he is contacted by a tribe in Swaziland who wish to commission a new TV series, so popular are his vintage exploits. In a bizarre twist,  his African fans do not realise that Matthews is white. The bulk of the novel follows the exploits and farcical misunderstandings of Matthews and his family's new life in Africa as he adapts to his celebrity, and his comic and accident-prone attempts to keep his true ethnicity under wraps.  

Income Support (title NM, text JM)
This bawdy farce is a must read for all of you who loved 'The Fully Monty'! It's a blow-by-blow account of long-term benefit claimants in Swindon who decide to turn their talents to pornography. Their x-rated bonk-buster 'In-Cum Support' offers an unusual view of sex in a relationship between a man with permanent erectile dysfunction and his long-suffering lover.  
A graphic, horny and comic account of real sex that manages to tell a few home truths about life on the economic scrap heap in the 21st century.

Exemplary Service (title NM, text JM)
A first-person account of strong emotions, set in a boy's boarding school in the 1930's.  A sensitive attempt to convey the hopes, frustration and bitterness of Evelyn, the school's matron, born without a face and with a foot-long tongue. Despite her ill-treatment by boys, other staff members and parents, she devotes herself to her job, spurred on only by her unshakable attachment to the repressedly homosexual headmaster. Eventually they marry, but Evelyn is diagnosed with a terminal illness.  Curiously life-affirming.

 Plan Living (title JM, text NM)
A poignant historical novel set in the terrifying period of purges and executions in Stalin's Russia of the 1930's. The narrator, a veteran of the 1980's Samizdat dissent movement, brings to vivid life the world of  Vitaly Antochick, a hero of Soviet Labour working in a steel plant in the Dometsk basin, the minutia of factory routine interspersed with the drama and humiliation of his exploitation in the nascent Soviet media. The novel turns on Vitaly's growing isolation from his wife and fellow labourers, as he seeks solace in the arms of a young party member, with tragic consequences. "A tear-jerker with powerful political relevance for contemporary society" (Soviet Worker).