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Previous Readers' Group Reviews

The Masons Book Club

The Masons Book Club in Worcestershire review The Idea of Love by Louise Dean.

This is a story about the breakdown of relationships and its effect on mental health. The book’s cover might initially give you the impression that this is going to be a fluffy love story but if you look closely there is a scalpel in the corner which does not bode well!

The main character Richard lives a charmed life as an ex pat in France. He feels he is fully absorbed into the French way of life and totally accepted by the indigenous population. Then things start to go wrong, his wife becomes involved with his neighbor, leading to the breakdown of his marriage. His son Maxence is a strange child and is badly affected by his parents split. Richard becomes disillusioned with his job as a sales director for a pharmaceutical company in Africa. When he sees that the Africans need “tables and chairs” rather than drugs for mental health problems he begins to realise that African society is better equipped for coping with mental health in some ways than Western society.

Richard eventually suffers a breakdown, loses his job and ends up taking the very drugs that he once sold. It is only when he realises that he has feelings for his neighbours's wife, and she for him, that he begins to pull himself out of his despair.

Some of our members found the book hard to get into but most found it interesting and rewarding when they persevered. The book raises questions about corruption in African countries particularly illustrated when his Richard’s neighbours attempt to adopt a child from Sierra Leone.

Our members felt the characters were interesting and complicated and the storyline was original. It is a book which entertains with some funny moments but it also makes you think about love, relationships and the pretence which often surrounds them and the use of drugs as a panacea for mental health.