The second book of our book club is Nina Stibbe’s Love, Nina. I came across it in an article asking writers to recommend a ‘positive’ book. I did not research it, I just presented the above to my other two book clubbers who both said ‘Yes’ and here I am 108 pages in.

After Stay With Me, a book, in which children are lost, Love, Nina is about children that are found – introduced into Nina’s life as she attempts to figure out what her life is. Stibbe was twenty when she moved to London to become a nanny to Mary-Kay Wilmers’, a founder and editor of London Review of Books, two sons – Sam and Will. The book covers five years in the form of Stibbe’s letters to her sister. We do not get her sister’s replies, however, we do get a lot of quotes from all the protagonists. Now, that is where the hilariousness lies. The book had me in stitches in three pages…

The letters are brief, rather pedestrian, dealing almost exclusively with everyday occurrences and yet they are anything but mundane. If you often find yourself scrolling through pages/tweets/posts of parents’ quoting their children, this would be something for you, only better as the adults, engaging with the children can certainly match their funniness. There are many different characters and since this is a collection of letters I struggle to pin the people down. Luckily, there is a helpful list of all the personages at the very start of the book and I keep checking it quite often then googling some more as many are known for one thing or another and I need to know exactly.

There are people who are not identified by their real name, presumably because they did not give their consent, and it makes you appreciate those who did more, like Alan Bennett who does not necessarily always come out in positive light, although, as I mentioned above, the stories are of ordinary events, i.e. there is no ‘dirt’ to be dug.

It is also intriguing to see Nina come to light through her comments and her recounting of the exchanges as you consider that she is twenty and new to London and literature. Her insecurities are very familiar and so are her observations and interpretations. She did not feel the need to hide or omit her mistakes or injustices and so everyone, including her, comes across as your average, regular and ordinary person. And therein lies the books’ strength and appeal.

Mary-Kay: People are only horrible if they’re hungry or unhappy.

Will: That could be anyone.

Mary-Kay: Yes.

Will: Everyone.

Mary-Kay: Yes.

Will: At any time.

Mary-Kay: Yes.

Sam: They just need a banana.

Mary-Kay: Exactly.

UPDATE:

During our book club session we discussed the specific vocabulary used in the book, some of us considered it to be British slang, some of us thought it may even be peculiar to a region and to the eighties era. We each battled with it a little. Another topic was the particularity of the ‘humour’ and we ended up talking about MK being American while Nina and Alan Bennett were British but somehow, their tones came together in an unexpected unison. We concluded that it may be stemming from their personalities and the fact that neither of them felt the need to hide behind a persona and they were all natural and sincere.

Nevertheless, we all struggled with Nina’s lies. Whether it was her making up messages from people she encountered, damaging the car or filling in the surveys instead of distributing them around. We were willing to excuse these by Nina’s youth, naïveté and insecurities but we also all agreed that we found them somewhat disturbing.

Despite this, we all agreed that she was the perfect match for the family and the boys and that we are all very grateful to MK, Alan Bennet and the rest for agreeing to have these letters published.

When discussing the absence of Vic’s replies we were of the opinion that Nina was most preoccupied with her own stories that she wanted to share and that that may have been a sign of her self-centredness (or youth, naïveté and insecurities).

As former English Lit students we also enjoyed Nina’s tabula rasa approach to the various writers she came across during her studies. We especially enjoyed her poetry. I was fooled by her rendering of Seamus Heaney…

All in all, the book delivered (for some of us more, for some a little less) on its promise of positivity and we can now dedicate our time and attention to a heavier tome.