Merde Actually

Merde Actually
Stephen ClarkeRandom House
411 pages, $23.95

“ARE there any clean clothes in the house?” I asked Florence. “Ah, oui.”

She went off to the wardrobe in her mum’s room and returned with a grey t-shirt and the most unpleasant pair of trousers I’d ever seen in my life.

They had an elasticated waist and were made out of a blue and orange check material decorated with fist-sized red flowers.

Florence picked up on my lack of enthusiasm. “They’re African,” she said. “So is the Ebola virus,” I replied. Merde Actually is the follow up to Clarke’s bestseller, A Year in the Merde, and is the delightful tale of an Englishman’s attempts at setting up a traditional English tea house on the Champs Elysee in Paris.

From erotic zucchinis to rusty bicycles and runny cheese, Clarke will have you laughing as he bumbles his way through the language as he crosses the continent in search of true love and business success. A perfect read.

– Rachel Irving
Volume 11, No. 38, March 8, 2006

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