I vacillated between three and four stars for this little book. Right out of the gate it had a lot going for it for me, an Anglophile. It takes place in London. It's about a small community of barge dwellers (a long-standing fantasy of mine-to live on a houseboat, and on the Thames would be the epitome). It's set in the early 60s, critical to me and my nascent adolescence.

A number of reviews criticized its lack of plot, but the plot is secondary as it's a glimpse into the lives of a handful of souls who have been marginalized-physically, emotionally, some financially. Ordinarily this odd mix of people would not move in the same social circles, but due to exigent circumstances they're thrown in to literally sink or swim together.

As I'd known nothing about the book before picking it up to read for a book group, I found myself unsure as to its intent and it wasn't until the end that I realized there is much intentional black comedy. Good thing as I may have been chuckling at serious misfortune and would have thought myself a terrible person.