Product Description

Hiliary Hughes and husband, Shaun, are on holiday in the Costa del Sol in an attempt to rescue their marriage. Pasternak's aim is to get a shag, while Maggie McLaren, the holiday rep, tries to stop naive British girls falling prey to the local gigolos. The essence of a package holiday in the Med.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #207072 in Books
• Published on: 2001-03-01
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 238 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
Leisure, the follow-up to Powder , is Kevin Sampson's third novel and the ultimate beach holiday read as it follows the antics of a group of English holidaymakers on the Costa del Sol. The book opens with "Pasternack. A fat bloke", otherwise known as "Doctor Fun", downing yards of ale in a Stockport pub with his mates Tom, Mickey, and Matt, who "looked like the rugby player Jeremy Guscott", all of them preparing for "one glorious week of madness" in Spain. Their week abroad is fated to become entangled with Hilary and Shaun, travelling to the same hotel. Both are desperately trying to save their marriage, on the rocks since Shaun's fall from a building site, which has impaired his sound and vision. As everyone settles into a round of drinks, clubs, drugs and sex, cracks begin to appear in the midst of all the fun. Pasternack, pursued by Millie from Nijmegen, who "looks like a well-made Brooke Shields", confesses to being a virgin, and Hilary's sexual frustration with Shaun reaches a crescendo with the rather dumb but appealingly misunderstood Matt.

Leisure is full of very funny moments, as Shaun is mistaken for Jesus by a group of Spanish nuns, and Pasternack summons up his sexual courage with a cocktail of ecstasy and viagra, stomping his way through Abba and Madness, but the book's more lyrical moments of seriousness fall rather flat. It's much better if you take it as a funny fantasy about getting everything you want (and sometimes even a bit more than you bargained for) from your package holiday in the sun. --Jerry Brotton.

Amazon.co.uk Review
Leisure is Kevin Sampson's third novel, the follow-up to Powder, and is the ultimate beach holiday read, as it follows the antics of a group of English holidaymakers on the Costa del Sol. The book opens with "Pasternack. A fat bloke", otherwise known as "Doctor Fun", downing yards of ale in a Stockport pub with his mates Tom, Mickey, and Matt, who "looked like the rugby player Jeremy Guscott", all of them preparing for "one glorious week of madness" in Spain. Their week abroad is fated to become entangled with Hilary and Shaun, travelling to the same hotel. Both are desperately trying to save their marriage, on the rocks since Shaun's fall from a building site, which has impaired his sound and vision. As everyone settles into a round of drinks, clubs, drugs and sex, cracks begin to appear in the midst of all the fun. Pasternack, pursued by Millie from Nijmegen, who "looks like a well-made Brooke Shields", confesses to being a virgin, and Hilary's sexual frustration with Shaun reaches a crescendo with the rather dumb but appealingly misunderstood Matt.

Leisure is full of very funny moments, as Shaun is mistaken for Jesus by a group of Spanish nuns, and Pasternack summons up his sexual courage with a cocktail of ecstasy and viagra, stomping his way through Abba and Madness, but the book's more lyrical moments of seriousness fall rather flat. It's much better if you take it as a funny fantasy about getting everything you want (and sometimes even a bit more than you bargained for) from your package holiday in the sun. --Jerry Brotton.

Review
"An amusing yet tender look at the strange things people get up to when the sun comes out." -"Mirror"
"What makes Sampson's third novel such a fun read are his acute observations about contemporary twentysomething life, detailed personal traits and scenic descriptions." -"Face"

Customer Reviews

Blissful - memories of summer
Simply a beautiful book - it brought back all those memories of balmy summer evenings, scented air and pungent wine. As a previous reviewer remarked (whose comments made me buy this book!), you can actually taste the coffee and smell the fresh-cooked mackerel on the beach grill, it's so evocatively written.

It's a wry and well-observed look at holiday relationships, not just between sexually-jousting couples but also the balance of power between four young men in search of holiday romance, too. And they're not beer monsters, these boys - you'd kind of like to meet any of them on your travels - but Pasternak in particular is a gem of a character.

Leisure is funny, but full of wisdom and truth about the way it is when you're on holiday in search of something special. Maybe it's out there, maybe we're deluding ourselves...but Leisure makes it seem as though a summer in Andalucia is the place to try. Read it, laugh, cry...just bliss.

Not just a holiday read
Ideal for reading whilst lazing by a pool soaking up the sun, this book isn't just a holiday read.

Kevin Sampson's book captures the "Brits Abroad" hedonistic mentality but also shows the cultural worth of venturing abroad. The setting is evoked wonderfully and the characters are rich and well-drawn.

Ultimately, the story is a triumph of the underdog as those characters that appear to be sad losers at the start of the book end up with the most, and those that appear to have the most going for them let it all slip away.

Depending on who you "root" for in the book you'll either find the ending sad or really uplifting, but personally I enjoyed seeing the underdogs triumph.

Another top book from Kevin Sampson!

Hugely disappointing after Awaydays and Powder
Sampson's first two novels - seventies Tranmere hooligan coming-of-age story Awaydays and Britpop saga Powder - are two of the funniest, most acerbic books I've read for a long time. I wanted Leisure to be more of the same. Alas, it wasn't.

The writing lacked punch, the characters didn't seem convincing, the plot was contrived... it just wasn't a particularly enjoyable book. I was very disappointed and I hope Sampson returns to the more incisive tone of his earlier work.