The Secret Lemonade Drinker — Guy Bellamy

It is Christmas time in a small, modern, utterly featureless town somewhere in the Home Counties, where Bobby Booth lives. The main preoccupations of its inhabitants are drink â€" at the pub generally known as the Planet of the Apes because it is frequented by so many long-haired young men â€" and gossip, which at Bobby's closest friend Roland's Christmas party turns into violence…

Bobby manages a launderette for Roland, who is gross, periodically rich and a man without illusions. Previously Bobby was a school teacher whose class was interrupted one fateful day by slim, blonde journalist, Caroline. Despite Roland's warning â€" he believes in sex, not marriage â€" Bobby marries her.

One evening an attractive brunette wanders into the launderette. It is her second visit, and in no time she has dragged Bobby into bed. Some time before, Bobby has been pronounced sterile. Caroline wants a baby â€" a baby by a real man, even if it is a milkman. The temptation to yield irrevocably to the charms of the brunette grows powerfully in Bobby. Whether he will yield forms the climax to the novel.

"One of the wittiest books I've read in years....a delicious book by a wonderfully funny, aphoristic writer."
Erica Jong

"Must surely mark the arrival of a major new comic talent. I laughed and I laughed, read it in the state of tremulous excitement which must be the nearest we novel reviewers come to an understanding of heavenly bliss…the book is a corker â€" witty, intelligently observed, well written and original."
Auberon Waugh, Evening Standard