Nicola Dinan presents a much-needed update on finding love in London as a 30-something in this follow-up to her brilliant 2023 debut novel, Bellies.
Max is no Bridget Jones. She is fiercely intelligent, a quarter Chinese and trans. She is also a success, at least on paper, living in fashionable Hackney and working as a legal counsel with enough time to write poetry. But her day-job is robotic, her published book received only mild support and she has split with her boyfriend. As the attraction of unbridled hedonism palls, especially after waking up alone in hospital the morning after a wild party, she decides to have a go at heteronormativity. After all, as Dinan writes:
We live in a world that pathologizes singledom, where being single means being alone. With every headline of an octogenarian dying two weeks after their spouse, we believe it more.
Running the gauntlet of the dating apps, Max matches with Vincent Chan. He couldn’t be more suitable: a high-flying lawyer with Hong Kong Chinese parents (which will delight Max’s mother) and a keen baker in his spare time. Even better, he is kind and thoughtful and appears to love Max. What could possibly go wrong?Plenty, it appears, because Vincent did something very bad in Thailand, a decade ago. If Max finds out his secret, it will derail the relationship. There are other issues bubbling under too. Vincent’s parents expect him to have children, whereas Max hasn’t decided and, being trans, the issue is less clear-cut. In any case, after a series of failed romances, Max has set herself up, like the novel’s title, to be disappointed. For example, she worries that Vincent will leave her for a younger model because beauty “much like hairlines, recedes.”
Dinan’s great talent is her witty and meticulous observation. Max’s first meeting with Vincent is a masterclass in the minutiae of date anxiety: will he judge me for holding my chopsticks badly, or not sticking to plant-based only in Veganuary? Max is also seen scouring for the tiny signals, like whether Vincent has sweaty armpits, which will amount to a connection or not.
Max’s scrutiny may be knife-sharp but it also cuts. No pretension nor peccadillo is left unpicked as she surveys the actions of her friends, colleagues and family, and occasionally herself. Her best friend, Simone, is equally unforgiving. In a memorably rude exchange, Simone calls out their holiday host Aisha for wearing a wedding ring yet refusing to refer to her husband as anything other than “partner” in a bid to appear less conservative.
However, the spleen goes both ways. An outsider in traditional social circumstances, Max is often hurt by thoughtless words and this is when she is most relatable. A particularly poignant episode is when Max compliments a baby, its mother replies “you’ll know one day” and then gasps as she realises her faux pas. Again, as the ultimate humiliation for a singleton, Max’s friend Emily insists that Max be a bridesmaid at her wedding.
On her occasional forays into “trad” society, Max occasionally feels she is “cheating on queerness”. Without spoiling the plot, the time soon comes where she has to challenge her long-held principles and why she abides by them because “the truth feels more complicated.”
This concept is also explored in her relationship with her alcoholic father, Peter, which nicely reflects the Max/Vincent dynamic. During Max’s reconciliation with Peter, he points her to a line in her own poetry: “No person is fewer than two things.” While this is open to interpretation, in this context it can be understood to mean that a person should not be defined by a single event or characteristic or even identity. In other words, good people can do bad things; you can choose to leave them, or to forgive them. This insightful novel suggests that, sometimes, getting off your high horse and extending a hand to that person is more useful and more human.
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