{"id":1251454,"date":"2024-05-22T17:40:04","date_gmt":"2024-05-22T17:40:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/golftoday.co.uk\/?p=1251454"},"modified":"2024-05-22T18:08:50","modified_gmt":"2024-05-22T18:08:50","slug":"roderick-easdale-summer-at-tangents-a-rare-and-wonderfully-funny-golf-novel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/golftoday.co.uk\/roderick-easdale-summer-at-tangents-a-rare-and-wonderfully-funny-golf-novel\/","title":{"rendered":"Summer at Tangents: A rare and wonderfully funny golf novel"},"content":{"rendered":"

Golf is a game that lends itself to humour. There are joke books in abundance; so, too, golf-themed greetings cards. However, comparatively little by the way of humorous long-form fiction of the game has been published. Maybe it is too hard to avoid the pitfalls of clich\u00e9d figures and attitudes. PG Wodehouse<\/span><\/strong><\/a> wrote a series of golfing short stories, and a few others have attempted golf novels. But it is a surprising few in the circumstances. Into this underpopulated field comes the wonderfully funny novel Summer At Tangents<\/em> by Roderick Easdale<\/span>.<\/p>\n

The author<\/span><\/strong><\/a> has written a vivid comic novel set in a village dominated by its golf club. The author certainly knows this territory. He has worked as a golf journalist for a quarter of a century and is, or has been, a member of six golf clubs. He has written five non-fiction books, one of which was about PG Wodehouse\u2019s novels, but this is his debut novel.<\/p>\n

\"Summer<\/p>\n

Summer at Tangents<\/em> is published by Brindle Books, an independent publishing house based in Yorkshire. Head of Brindle Books, Richard Hinchcliffe, explains: \u201cAs soon as I read the manuscript, I was determined that we would publish this book. In Summer at Tangents<\/em>, Roderick has managed to create character-driven humour which is funny without ever seeming cruel \u2013 something that many modern authors fail to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

The novel depicts the positive role golf clubs can play in their communities. Tangents is a decaying village. What\u2019s left is a church that few attend and a struggling golf club run by well-meaning but incompetent committeemen. Now the diocese threatens to close the church.<\/p>\n

The vicar\u2019s good friend Willoughby Cornwallis is possessed of a sense of mischief and is instinctively anti the establishment yet outwardly a pillar of it locally. A wily golf club politician, he acts to save the church in ways which also benefit the club but involve duping almost everyone along the way.<\/p>\n

Summer at Tangents<\/em> is a comic novel but also, ultimately, a cleverly plotted feel-good story.<\/p>\n