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Feeding Time
Feeding Time, the debut novel by Paris-based writer Adam Biles, is a story about a rebellion in an old people's home—or perhaps, more pertinently, about a rebellion of people who just happen to be old. The characters in Feeding Time are as funny, annoying, sharp, deranged, loving, and infinitely various as everyone else. They deserve dignity, and they know it—which makes it all the more imperative that something is done about the appalling conditions in Green Oaks. A story about the triumph of the human spirit told with verve and originality, to simply outline the plot of Feeding Time is to miss out on the strangeness, zest, and vigor of a deeply impressive debut. It is a triumph of the spirit—and a blast of rage against the dying of the light.
410 pages, Paperback
Published August 18, 2016
15 people are currently reading
322 people want to read
About the author
Adam Biles
7 books14 followersAdam is the author of Grey Cats, which was runner-up in the inaugural Paris Literary Prize in 2011, and published by 3:AM Press in 2012. His short stories, poetry and translations have been published in journals including 3:AM Magazine, Vestoj, and Chimera, as well as being displayed in the Palais de Tokyo. In May 2012, his ficto-essay The Deep was published in a bilingual edition by Editions de la Houle, a new Belgian house.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 37 reviews
June 30, 2020
Acceptable. A few times funny, most times cringy. Biles bites more than he can chew. Too much of a contemporary mainstream anglophone feeling for my taste, if you know what I mean, and trying to be funny without really being. Scratches, but doesn't dig. Entertaining, but also a bit dumb.
September 9, 2019
Wild and unhinged black comedy, a fattened update of BS Johnson’s House Mother Normal. Inventive, scatological, frenetic, and riotous.
November 16, 2017
Feeding Time is another excellent novel from the independent Galley Beggar Press, publishers of A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing, Forbidden Line, We That Are Young and Playthings, one that per Joanna Walsh, one of the judges, only narrowly missed out on the 2016 Goldsmiths Prize shortlist.
The author Adam Biles is events director at Shakespeare and Co in Paris, possibly my favourite bookshop ever (see http://adambiles.net/audiovisual/ for him talking about his own book at the shop) and this is his debut novel.
One of my favourite novels of the last 12 months was Margaret Drabble's The Dark Flood Rises, which tackled the subject of ageing and old-age care.
Biles's novel tackles a similar subject but with a very different style and tone - scatological and slapstick humour at times. And whereas Drabble's characters were in expensive sheltered housing with their cultural stimulation, Biles's care homes are, by his own admission, inspired more by prison camps.
Dot is a retired teacher of English literature, "the kind of teacher only appreciated years down the line when a safe distance had been established and maintained."
After her husband, Leonard, suffering from dementia, has to be committed into care, she decides to sell her house and enter the same care home, Green Oaks herself.
But there she immediately encounters a disorientating setting (where even is Leonard?) and a weird range of characters amongst her fellow residents:
What wasn't odd around here? It was as if Dot had walked into a clunky Dickensian archetypes. Windsor? Lanyard? Smithy? As much as she disliked herself for it, she'd already found their pigeonholes: Windsor was the Faux-Aristo-John-Bull, Lanyard the Tuppenny-Ha'penny-Bureaucrat and Smithy the Broken-Spirit-Out-to-Pasture. As for Olive, she was an extraneous character, no doubt about it, thrown into the mix to hammer home a point about something or other, at some time or other, but with little direct impact on the narrative. She was having more trouble with Betty, although give her time ... she'd nail her as well.
The staff are equally odd. The disreputable director Raymond Cornish is seldom seen and spends most of the novel drawing obscene pictures of the patients, and grooming a 15 year-old girl while counting the days till her 16th birthday.
And the staff, "CareFriends", consist of three youngsters, addicted to the drugs intended for those under their care. Their 'care' regime revolves around disorientation techniques - sedating "the Greys" into submission, all clocks are removed or the times set wrong, and personal watches confiscated so they have no sense of time, even the board games and jigsaws have pieces purposely removed. Even the names of the patients prove to have been given to them by the CareFriends so as to remove their BGO (before Green Oaks) identity and turn them into the caricatures Dot recognises.
Rehearsing a conversation with a potential complaining relative, one CareFriend announces he would respond:
Newsflash! - you don't get a say into what happens to your garbage after you throw it out!
The most memorable of all Dot's fellows is Captain Dylan Ruggles (actually a retired administrator), convinced that the care home is actually a German POW camp in the second world war and he a war hero, constantly plotting his escape plans. However Dot thinks:
The only border he risked crossing was the one-way frontier into the Kingdom of the Doolally.
Parts of the novel are told from Ruggles's perspective but in the style of a war comic - 'Air Souls' (pun intended by the author) - complete with cartoons and amusing adverts for laxatives and false teeth. Ruggles also channels Don Quixote (a nod to Biles' stablemate Paul Stanbridge?) in his delusions.
Institutionalisation is a crucial theme for Biles - of both guards/wardens and prisoners/patients - and Dot finds herself oddly accepting of the situation and regime, even of the fact that her husband Leonard isn't in the same ward and she has no idea where he is.
In that sense, the delusional Ruggles is, in one sense, the most grounded of the characters, as the one person 'raging against the dying of the light' (his name Dylan is, as as the novel itself acknowledges, a deliberate nod to Dylan Thomas) and he eventually leads the residents in a rebellion against the CareFriends, their true characters also emerging more from the caricatures created by their carers.
They temporarily create their own benign regime, even finding the seemingly ruined games are perfect for the 'premies' (a ward of those suffering from dementia - including, Dot eventually finds, Leonard):
The fact that they were incomplete, unplayable, didn't seem to matter. The haphazardness of the games seemed to gel perfectly with the haphazardness of their minds. The Jack of Hearts overtook Colonel Mustard to pass Go and collect several jigsaw pieces for his trouble. Why in the end, shouldn't that make sense.
But at the novel's end theGermans CareFriends return with support from troops their mates, to attempt to retake the camp care-home.
"Exposition, complication, climax, resolution" was Dot's constant mantra to her students as a teacher, but she ponders that movies seldom worry about the aftermath of the resolution, and that the same applies to people's lives:
How much more the syringe suited the Reaper than the scythe. The scythe was swift, clean, almost merciful. But he scythed so rarely these days. Now he preferred the slow torture of Parkinson's, of senility, of the crab. These afflictions allowed the spirit to attend its own harvesting, to watch the vessel wither on the vine, to contemplate the void, to remain present, conscious, down to the very last-drop of soul-marrow. Nobody escaped it.
A solid 4 stars - recommended.
Thanks to Galley Beggar Press for the ARC.
The author Adam Biles is events director at Shakespeare and Co in Paris, possibly my favourite bookshop ever (see http://adambiles.net/audiovisual/ for him talking about his own book at the shop) and this is his debut novel.
One of my favourite novels of the last 12 months was Margaret Drabble's The Dark Flood Rises, which tackled the subject of ageing and old-age care.
Biles's novel tackles a similar subject but with a very different style and tone - scatological and slapstick humour at times. And whereas Drabble's characters were in expensive sheltered housing with their cultural stimulation, Biles's care homes are, by his own admission, inspired more by prison camps.
Dot is a retired teacher of English literature, "the kind of teacher only appreciated years down the line when a safe distance had been established and maintained."
After her husband, Leonard, suffering from dementia, has to be committed into care, she decides to sell her house and enter the same care home, Green Oaks herself.
But there she immediately encounters a disorientating setting (where even is Leonard?) and a weird range of characters amongst her fellow residents:
What wasn't odd around here? It was as if Dot had walked into a clunky Dickensian archetypes. Windsor? Lanyard? Smithy? As much as she disliked herself for it, she'd already found their pigeonholes: Windsor was the Faux-Aristo-John-Bull, Lanyard the Tuppenny-Ha'penny-Bureaucrat and Smithy the Broken-Spirit-Out-to-Pasture. As for Olive, she was an extraneous character, no doubt about it, thrown into the mix to hammer home a point about something or other, at some time or other, but with little direct impact on the narrative. She was having more trouble with Betty, although give her time ... she'd nail her as well.
The staff are equally odd. The disreputable director Raymond Cornish is seldom seen and spends most of the novel drawing obscene pictures of the patients, and grooming a 15 year-old girl while counting the days till her 16th birthday.
And the staff, "CareFriends", consist of three youngsters, addicted to the drugs intended for those under their care. Their 'care' regime revolves around disorientation techniques - sedating "the Greys" into submission, all clocks are removed or the times set wrong, and personal watches confiscated so they have no sense of time, even the board games and jigsaws have pieces purposely removed. Even the names of the patients prove to have been given to them by the CareFriends so as to remove their BGO (before Green Oaks) identity and turn them into the caricatures Dot recognises.
Rehearsing a conversation with a potential complaining relative, one CareFriend announces he would respond:
Newsflash! - you don't get a say into what happens to your garbage after you throw it out!
The most memorable of all Dot's fellows is Captain Dylan Ruggles (actually a retired administrator), convinced that the care home is actually a German POW camp in the second world war and he a war hero, constantly plotting his escape plans. However Dot thinks:
The only border he risked crossing was the one-way frontier into the Kingdom of the Doolally.
Parts of the novel are told from Ruggles's perspective but in the style of a war comic - 'Air Souls' (pun intended by the author) - complete with cartoons and amusing adverts for laxatives and false teeth. Ruggles also channels Don Quixote (a nod to Biles' stablemate Paul Stanbridge?) in his delusions.
Institutionalisation is a crucial theme for Biles - of both guards/wardens and prisoners/patients - and Dot finds herself oddly accepting of the situation and regime, even of the fact that her husband Leonard isn't in the same ward and she has no idea where he is.
In that sense, the delusional Ruggles is, in one sense, the most grounded of the characters, as the one person 'raging against the dying of the light' (his name Dylan is, as as the novel itself acknowledges, a deliberate nod to Dylan Thomas) and he eventually leads the residents in a rebellion against the CareFriends, their true characters also emerging more from the caricatures created by their carers.
They temporarily create their own benign regime, even finding the seemingly ruined games are perfect for the 'premies' (a ward of those suffering from dementia - including, Dot eventually finds, Leonard):
The fact that they were incomplete, unplayable, didn't seem to matter. The haphazardness of the games seemed to gel perfectly with the haphazardness of their minds. The Jack of Hearts overtook Colonel Mustard to pass Go and collect several jigsaw pieces for his trouble. Why in the end, shouldn't that make sense.
But at the novel's end the
"Exposition, complication, climax, resolution" was Dot's constant mantra to her students as a teacher, but she ponders that movies seldom worry about the aftermath of the resolution, and that the same applies to people's lives:
How much more the syringe suited the Reaper than the scythe. The scythe was swift, clean, almost merciful. But he scythed so rarely these days. Now he preferred the slow torture of Parkinson's, of senility, of the crab. These afflictions allowed the spirit to attend its own harvesting, to watch the vessel wither on the vine, to contemplate the void, to remain present, conscious, down to the very last-drop of soul-marrow. Nobody escaped it.
A solid 4 stars - recommended.
Thanks to Galley Beggar Press for the ARC.
July 4, 2016
Feeding Time, by Adam Biles, is set in an old people’s care home, Green Oaks. Established in an old manor house, it is now owned by a conglomerate whose aim is to maximise profit. It is a place where the elderly and infirm who can no longer cope on their own go to die. The story is laced with humour but also the horror of such places. It portrays the residents with honesty and dignity, despite the many indignities that old age brings.
The reader is first introduced to Dot as she leaves the bungalow in which she and her husband had lived for the past twenty years. She has chosen to join him at Green Oaks where she moved him six weeks ago. Their only son is settled abroad with his own small family. He is dutiful, ringing her regularly for reassurance that all is well. Dot understands that institutions such as Green Oaks exist for the young as much as the old, lifting as they do the burden of care.
It does not take long for Dot to realise that life in this place will be nothing like the impression she was given when she applied to move in. The three wards are communal and staff are few. She is confused when her husband is not on the ward to which she has been assigned. Her fellow residents have multiple, age related health issues which they present to her with something akin to pride.
Dot meets Captain Ruggles who experiences life in the style of a weekly Story Paper from around the war. Each episode is presented to the reader complete with illustrations and advertisements (these are priceless!). His grasp on the reality that others see is tenuous. He believes that he is a prisoner of the Nazis having been accidently parachuted into this camp. He is eager to recruit his fellow inmates and orchestrate their escape.
Green Oaks is run by Raymond Cornish who finds the residents repellent and avoids them. Nursing needs have been outsourced so he now has just three staff to deal with day to day tasks. These young, underpaid Carefriends pilfer drugs from supplies and mitigate their boredom and personal frustrations with petty cruelties enacted against the elderly who they despise. When Captain Ruggles’ loud and lively behaviour disrupts their routine they seek to transfer him to the mythically feared Ward C that he may be chemically shut down.
There is a missing resident, Kalka, whose bed was given to Dot. He may be dead or simply moved elsewhere. The Captain remembers this man saving his life and wishes to return the favour. Discussion about his possible whereabouts, indeed about most things, is a struggle as few of the residents seem capable of retaining a train of thought. They take their drugs then sit in the day room or sleep, leaking effluence and odours while the staff concentrate on their own sorry lives.
There is no shying from the messy issues brought on by advancing age, yet each of the residents is presented as the person they still are inside their decaying shell. The Captain is a fabulous character, completely batty but living a life which in his own mind is real. It is a surprisingly uplifting portrayal of dementia.
The manner in which residents are treated by staff is grim, as is the behaviour of Cornish. What sets this book apart though is its spirit and style. There is a muted energy behind each of the characters despite their infirmities. Mind and bodily functions may have been loosened but there are still moments of perspicacity as they rage against the hand that life has dealt.
While there is still this hold on life there are adventures to be had, battles to be fought, especially against those who regard the elderly as a problem to be managed and silenced. As the staff slip further into mires of their own making, the old seek to enact their cunning plans.
This is a rare and imaginative tale filled with wit, verve and derring-do, as well as leaky, ravaged bodies. It is a story of people and life, strikingly original, brilliantly written and ingeniously presented. I recommend you order this book direct from the publisher now.
My copy of this book was provided gratis by the publisher, Galley Beggar Press.
The reader is first introduced to Dot as she leaves the bungalow in which she and her husband had lived for the past twenty years. She has chosen to join him at Green Oaks where she moved him six weeks ago. Their only son is settled abroad with his own small family. He is dutiful, ringing her regularly for reassurance that all is well. Dot understands that institutions such as Green Oaks exist for the young as much as the old, lifting as they do the burden of care.
It does not take long for Dot to realise that life in this place will be nothing like the impression she was given when she applied to move in. The three wards are communal and staff are few. She is confused when her husband is not on the ward to which she has been assigned. Her fellow residents have multiple, age related health issues which they present to her with something akin to pride.
Dot meets Captain Ruggles who experiences life in the style of a weekly Story Paper from around the war. Each episode is presented to the reader complete with illustrations and advertisements (these are priceless!). His grasp on the reality that others see is tenuous. He believes that he is a prisoner of the Nazis having been accidently parachuted into this camp. He is eager to recruit his fellow inmates and orchestrate their escape.
Green Oaks is run by Raymond Cornish who finds the residents repellent and avoids them. Nursing needs have been outsourced so he now has just three staff to deal with day to day tasks. These young, underpaid Carefriends pilfer drugs from supplies and mitigate their boredom and personal frustrations with petty cruelties enacted against the elderly who they despise. When Captain Ruggles’ loud and lively behaviour disrupts their routine they seek to transfer him to the mythically feared Ward C that he may be chemically shut down.
There is a missing resident, Kalka, whose bed was given to Dot. He may be dead or simply moved elsewhere. The Captain remembers this man saving his life and wishes to return the favour. Discussion about his possible whereabouts, indeed about most things, is a struggle as few of the residents seem capable of retaining a train of thought. They take their drugs then sit in the day room or sleep, leaking effluence and odours while the staff concentrate on their own sorry lives.
There is no shying from the messy issues brought on by advancing age, yet each of the residents is presented as the person they still are inside their decaying shell. The Captain is a fabulous character, completely batty but living a life which in his own mind is real. It is a surprisingly uplifting portrayal of dementia.
The manner in which residents are treated by staff is grim, as is the behaviour of Cornish. What sets this book apart though is its spirit and style. There is a muted energy behind each of the characters despite their infirmities. Mind and bodily functions may have been loosened but there are still moments of perspicacity as they rage against the hand that life has dealt.
While there is still this hold on life there are adventures to be had, battles to be fought, especially against those who regard the elderly as a problem to be managed and silenced. As the staff slip further into mires of their own making, the old seek to enact their cunning plans.
This is a rare and imaginative tale filled with wit, verve and derring-do, as well as leaky, ravaged bodies. It is a story of people and life, strikingly original, brilliantly written and ingeniously presented. I recommend you order this book direct from the publisher now.
My copy of this book was provided gratis by the publisher, Galley Beggar Press.
November 25, 2023
I finished Feeding Time a few days ago and have been wondering how to explain why I so enjoyed a book that has so much cruelty, gore, and wild diversions, and that makes me fear, even more, old age. I don't fear death, but I do fear being completely vulnerable. I realize that it was facing these fears through this darkly comical book that made me love it.
Feeding Time is set in a corporate owned, crumbling, old English manor house, with the pastoral name of Green Oaks. The characters are a group of abandoned and forgotten seniors under the supervision of the ironically titled CareFriends, 3 young people struggling to find their place in the world, and the director who never interacts with "the greys" or the CareFriends unless completely unavoidable.
I expected a humorous exploration into a sad, but gentle letting go of youth and independence and gradual acceptance of life's final, noble exit, a new Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont. This is anything but! Green Oaks is a battlefield. The greys fighting not for their lives, but for their dignity, their sanity, and most of all their personal identity against the tricks meant to disorient them and the medications meant to keep them passive.
The greys are an interesting group, each with their own stories, of course, who have developed their own coping strategies. The mystery in the story revolves around Dot, who signs herself in to Green Oaks to be with her husband, Leonard, whose dementia had reached a point where he no longer knew her and treated her as his enemy. The story opens with Dot driving away from her family home and moving into Green Oaks. Her welcome is very unpleasant and we realize from the start Green Oaks is not what she thought it would be and she has made a mistake moving there. Where is Leonard and what is Ward C that she hears so much about? We wonder with Dot why she hasn't tried to find Leonard? How much time has passed?
My favorite chapters were the The Air Souls! A Captain Ruggles Adventure, written in the style of the WWII era pulp magazines for boys, extolling the virtues of manliness, bravery, and war. For the Captain, my favorite character, Green Oaks was a Nazi prison camp and the CareFriends Nazi prison guards, and every event and interaction was, for him, part of his relentless quest to escape. These adventures of Captain Ruggles provide comic relief from a story that in reality is not funny.
We also spend time with Raymond Cornish, the long time director who is a sort of Dostoevsky Underground man. My only criticism of the book is the chapters revolving around Raymond Cornish. They were funny and deeply unsettling, but perhaps more of a diversion than was necessary. I'm not sure this storyline was necessary to a long book with many personalities and storylines, but they did not distract from the book.
Dot shares a large dormitory type room with Lanyard, Olive, Betty, Smithy, Windsor, and the Captain. Like the CareFriends, Dot, a retired English Lit teacher, makes the mistake of not seeing her roommates for who they are, but rather each as a type; so did I in the beginning. As the story and the battle unfolds Dot, the CareFriends, and we the readers learn that there is much more to these forgotten, weakened individuals, and we were wrong to underestimate them.
Every war has to have an enemy and the arch enemy of the greys is Tristan. A bitter young man, failing to live up to his father's and his own expectations and who takes out his frustrations on the residents with the help of Frankie, a punk rock girl with a bag of Oxynix, a sort of Oxtcontin, they steal from the residents prescriptions. The visuals of Tristan's injuries inflicted by different residents was quite funny.
I gave this book 5 stars. It is dark, funny, heartbreaking, unsettling and full of life. I still fear being weak and vulnerable (although I must say I have wonderful kids who will take good care of me,) but as this wonderful casts of characters shows us we never really stop being who we are, even if we have to create new ways to be.
I highly recommend this book.
Feeding Time is set in a corporate owned, crumbling, old English manor house, with the pastoral name of Green Oaks. The characters are a group of abandoned and forgotten seniors under the supervision of the ironically titled CareFriends, 3 young people struggling to find their place in the world, and the director who never interacts with "the greys" or the CareFriends unless completely unavoidable.
I expected a humorous exploration into a sad, but gentle letting go of youth and independence and gradual acceptance of life's final, noble exit, a new Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont. This is anything but! Green Oaks is a battlefield. The greys fighting not for their lives, but for their dignity, their sanity, and most of all their personal identity against the tricks meant to disorient them and the medications meant to keep them passive.
The greys are an interesting group, each with their own stories, of course, who have developed their own coping strategies. The mystery in the story revolves around Dot, who signs herself in to Green Oaks to be with her husband, Leonard, whose dementia had reached a point where he no longer knew her and treated her as his enemy. The story opens with Dot driving away from her family home and moving into Green Oaks. Her welcome is very unpleasant and we realize from the start Green Oaks is not what she thought it would be and she has made a mistake moving there. Where is Leonard and what is Ward C that she hears so much about? We wonder with Dot why she hasn't tried to find Leonard? How much time has passed?
My favorite chapters were the The Air Souls! A Captain Ruggles Adventure, written in the style of the WWII era pulp magazines for boys, extolling the virtues of manliness, bravery, and war. For the Captain, my favorite character, Green Oaks was a Nazi prison camp and the CareFriends Nazi prison guards, and every event and interaction was, for him, part of his relentless quest to escape. These adventures of Captain Ruggles provide comic relief from a story that in reality is not funny.
We also spend time with Raymond Cornish, the long time director who is a sort of Dostoevsky Underground man. My only criticism of the book is the chapters revolving around Raymond Cornish. They were funny and deeply unsettling, but perhaps more of a diversion than was necessary. I'm not sure this storyline was necessary to a long book with many personalities and storylines, but they did not distract from the book.
Dot shares a large dormitory type room with Lanyard, Olive, Betty, Smithy, Windsor, and the Captain. Like the CareFriends, Dot, a retired English Lit teacher, makes the mistake of not seeing her roommates for who they are, but rather each as a type; so did I in the beginning. As the story and the battle unfolds Dot, the CareFriends, and we the readers learn that there is much more to these forgotten, weakened individuals, and we were wrong to underestimate them.
Every war has to have an enemy and the arch enemy of the greys is Tristan. A bitter young man, failing to live up to his father's and his own expectations and who takes out his frustrations on the residents with the help of Frankie, a punk rock girl with a bag of Oxynix, a sort of Oxtcontin, they steal from the residents prescriptions. The visuals of Tristan's injuries inflicted by different residents was quite funny.
I gave this book 5 stars. It is dark, funny, heartbreaking, unsettling and full of life. I still fear being weak and vulnerable (although I must say I have wonderful kids who will take good care of me,) but as this wonderful casts of characters shows us we never really stop being who we are, even if we have to create new ways to be.
I highly recommend this book.
September 4, 2016
A disorientating mix of surreal and only-too-real, funny and bitterly sad, optimistically hopeless and fatalistically uplifting. An old folks’ home run by a cynical corporate management seems a depressing prospect. The physical deterioration of the residents is mirrored by their shabby surroundings and echoed by the crumbling morality of their ‘CareFriends’.
But the failings of the body are tempered by this exceptional tribute to the human mind. Imagination, whether manifest in stubborn delusion, drug-fuelled fantasy or erotic daydream, is the unifying element and only means of escape. And everyone, staff, residents and visiting relatives want nothing more than to escape.
Dot’s here looking for Leonard. His mind has gone and after the incident with the horse, she knows she can’t cope alone. She follows him to Green Acres, which seems at odds with the pictures in the brochure. She’s on Ward B, not the best, but not the worst. The question remains, where is Leonard?
Populated by fascinating characters of both the endearing and repulsive kind, the bizarre power struggles at the heart of Green Acres lure the reader closer with sharp observation and dark humour. This book provokes thoughtful reflections on mortality, ageing and inevitability, but does so while making you laugh and occasionally grimace.
From a writer whose imaginative acrobatics are ably supported by his dexterity with language and voice, this book will get under your skin.
You’ll enjoy this if you liked: The Hundred-Year Old Man Climbed Out Of A Window and Disappeared by Jonas Jonasson, The Works by Joseph Connolly, Epitaph for a Working Man by Erhard von Büren
Avoid if you don’t like: Some graphic physical descriptions of bodily functions, the truth about ageing, shifting realities
Ideal accompaniments: A pint of cloudy cider and a pork sausage grilled till the skin spilts.
But the failings of the body are tempered by this exceptional tribute to the human mind. Imagination, whether manifest in stubborn delusion, drug-fuelled fantasy or erotic daydream, is the unifying element and only means of escape. And everyone, staff, residents and visiting relatives want nothing more than to escape.
Dot’s here looking for Leonard. His mind has gone and after the incident with the horse, she knows she can’t cope alone. She follows him to Green Acres, which seems at odds with the pictures in the brochure. She’s on Ward B, not the best, but not the worst. The question remains, where is Leonard?
Populated by fascinating characters of both the endearing and repulsive kind, the bizarre power struggles at the heart of Green Acres lure the reader closer with sharp observation and dark humour. This book provokes thoughtful reflections on mortality, ageing and inevitability, but does so while making you laugh and occasionally grimace.
From a writer whose imaginative acrobatics are ably supported by his dexterity with language and voice, this book will get under your skin.
You’ll enjoy this if you liked: The Hundred-Year Old Man Climbed Out Of A Window and Disappeared by Jonas Jonasson, The Works by Joseph Connolly, Epitaph for a Working Man by Erhard von Büren
Avoid if you don’t like: Some graphic physical descriptions of bodily functions, the truth about ageing, shifting realities
Ideal accompaniments: A pint of cloudy cider and a pork sausage grilled till the skin spilts.
May 28, 2019
Dot leaves her bungalow to join her husband, Leonard, who she recently moved to Green Oaks, an old people’s care home. She quickly realises that Green Oaks is not like the advertising she read: the reader learns it is run by a conglomerate only interested in profit and that the staff (too few of them) are only interested in taking the drugs intended for the residents. Dot is surprised to find that Leonard is nowhere to be seen and sets out on a (long) mission to find him. She meets Captain Dylan Prometheus Ruggles who believes he is in the second world war and that he has accidentally parachuted into a Nazi prisoner-of-war camp. Ruggles is aiming to escape. Meanwhile, the director of the care home, Raymond Cornish, becomes sexually obsessed with a fifteen year old girl whom he grooms while eagerly awaiting her sixteenth birthday. Meanwhile, there is a missing resident, Kalka, whose bed Dot inherits on her arrival. Then there are several other residents (who I struggled to keep separate in my head at times) and the three staff, CareFriends, with their ongoing issues.
These stories swirl around one another mixing in other things like some kind of possible mystical, magical stuff happening in the house. There is a fair amount of sex and some gore.
To be honest, for my tastes, everything was turned up a bit too high. It is full on all the way through with multiple story lines, multiple ideas, multiple possibilities, multiple everything. It feels like the author has thrown every idea he ever had at this one book and I found it a bit too much.
These stories swirl around one another mixing in other things like some kind of possible mystical, magical stuff happening in the house. There is a fair amount of sex and some gore.
To be honest, for my tastes, everything was turned up a bit too high. It is full on all the way through with multiple story lines, multiple ideas, multiple possibilities, multiple everything. It feels like the author has thrown every idea he ever had at this one book and I found it a bit too much.
March 24, 2017
Finished ' Feeding Time' last night. I'm going to miss opening up this book each morning on my way to work, I LOVED IT. A Quixotic fight against the dying of the light. Funny, anarchic, and poignant. A little dense in places (thus no fifth star) but certainly one of the most exciting and engrossing books I've read this year. Like a BBC reboot of One Foot in the Grave/ Waiing for God, written by Cronenberg and directed by Ben Wheatley
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August 20, 2016Feeding Time begins with a woman’s arrival at her new residence in an eldercare home, but from there it goes off in all kinds of thrilling, thoughtful directions. It’s a novel about aging, but it’s also a novel of resistance — resisting the ravages of senescence, and senility, and the indignities of being treated as irrelevant by those paid to care for you and those you cared for as your own children. And that resistance takes on literal form as the residents of an utterly cruel, miserable, mismanaged home revolt against the institution in increasingly high-stakes, dramatic, often hilarious ways. Led by “The Captain,” an inmate whose rambunctious military bearing refuses to to be cowed, the residents seek to reclaim their dignity and identities in the face of institutional forces determined to reduce them, and among the many layers of that conflict I especially enjoyed the seriousness with which fantasy (even comic fantasy) is treated by Biles — his characters, the elders but also the incompetent “CareFriends” paid to mind them and the useless manager of the facility, all struggle between what their life is and what they think it should be. They resist or fail to resist bad marriages, a lack of prospects for getting ahead, and the realization of what they’ve become, so rather than the elders in their declining bodies being the most “decayed” among the cast there’s a reversal. The elders are active, with genuine agency and self-determination, as they try to reclaim identities they’ve been stripped of by so many forces from time to bureaucracy.
As the characters, old and young alike, struggle to hang onto themselves and, crucially, the fantasies that have allowed them to get on with life and endure, the novel incorporates adventure stories written in Boy’s Own fashion. Fantasy, and the fantastic, move deeper and deeper into the heart of the novel as it develops, though I don’t want to say more and risk spoiling it. Ultimately what I found really impressive and rewarding — not to mention great fun — was Bile’s success at giving dignity to his characters and their grim circumstances while balancing it with elements that could have so easily become awkward or clunky.
As the characters, old and young alike, struggle to hang onto themselves and, crucially, the fantasies that have allowed them to get on with life and endure, the novel incorporates adventure stories written in Boy’s Own fashion. Fantasy, and the fantastic, move deeper and deeper into the heart of the novel as it develops, though I don’t want to say more and risk spoiling it. Ultimately what I found really impressive and rewarding — not to mention great fun — was Bile’s success at giving dignity to his characters and their grim circumstances while balancing it with elements that could have so easily become awkward or clunky.
July 21, 2021
I think it is safe to say that I don’t understand the purpose of this novel. The blurb on the back says that it is set in a Care Home, one of the reviews describes it as Kafkaesque; I don’t think that either statement is true.
As someone who has recently retired from working in a Nursing Home, this isn’t any Care Home that has ever existed. 7 residents would not live in a mixed ward. Generally, they wouldn’t share a room with anyone else but their partner. There would be more than 3 carers. They would not all be on drugs and have no regard for the residents. And as for the manager….
But that is ok. I wouldn’t mind a strange unreal Home in a Kafkaesque world, representing the unknowningness and inexorability of life. Something like the worlds of Andrey Kurkov. Surreal.
This book is neither. It is too unreal for a portrait of Care and not unreal enough to create its own world. As I said, I don’t understand the point of it. Not surprisingly, I found it in the sale at Waterstones for £3.
As someone who has recently retired from working in a Nursing Home, this isn’t any Care Home that has ever existed. 7 residents would not live in a mixed ward. Generally, they wouldn’t share a room with anyone else but their partner. There would be more than 3 carers. They would not all be on drugs and have no regard for the residents. And as for the manager….
But that is ok. I wouldn’t mind a strange unreal Home in a Kafkaesque world, representing the unknowningness and inexorability of life. Something like the worlds of Andrey Kurkov. Surreal.
This book is neither. It is too unreal for a portrait of Care and not unreal enough to create its own world. As I said, I don’t understand the point of it. Not surprisingly, I found it in the sale at Waterstones for £3.
December 28, 2016
It took me a long time to get through this book. Multiple POVs kept any real momentum from building, and I feel the author kept inserting himself into the narration which made for a somewhat clunky read. There is no doubt Adam Biles is a very talented writer. I fear, maybe, he tried to do too much with this his first work.
I laughed out loud a few times, enjoyed a few of the characters--while others I found uninteresting or unbelievable—but I was a bit let down with the ending.
I laughed out loud a few times, enjoyed a few of the characters--while others I found uninteresting or unbelievable—but I was a bit let down with the ending.
January 9, 2022
Quelques difficultés à rentrer dans le livre, assez ennuyeux dans sa première partie. Au final, une petite claque à propos de la psychologie du troisième âge, ses aspirations, ses frustrations, sa solitude et un moment de réflexion quant à notre étrange façon de placer « nos vieux » et leurs derniers jours hors de notre vue. Déni de vieillesse sur lequel on peut s’interroger...
October 26, 2016
Loved the originality of the various writing styles, and the black humour was excellent. Did come away feeling a bit brain damaged, slightly unsure what was real and what wasn't. Was good fun though. Will definitely look out for more books by Adam Biles.
February 27, 2018
It tells you a lot when you have to read reviews on goodreads to understand what was going on in this novel, set in a care home.
All the characters seemed to merge into one voice and it was difficult to distinguish between those in care and their carers. There is one exception to this and that was the manager Cornish who has an unsavoury attraction towards a fifteen year old girl.
There are some smutty puns in the book, the title of the comic within the book 'Air Souls' being one of them.
For these puns to work you need to be a much more clever writer than Biles. I felt at times his narrative read like a stream of words pouring out from his pen (or PC) and not taking the time to edit at a later date.
For instance between Page 72 to 74 five sentences begin with Then, it was grating.
On editing I found it frustrating certain words were blocked out and I am trying to work out why especially at one point some pages only had four or five words to the page,
I found it very hard to find something positive about the book with the possible exception of the artwork of 'Air Souls', to sum this book up, a pile of bile.
All the characters seemed to merge into one voice and it was difficult to distinguish between those in care and their carers. There is one exception to this and that was the manager Cornish who has an unsavoury attraction towards a fifteen year old girl.
There are some smutty puns in the book, the title of the comic within the book 'Air Souls' being one of them.
For these puns to work you need to be a much more clever writer than Biles. I felt at times his narrative read like a stream of words pouring out from his pen (or PC) and not taking the time to edit at a later date.
For instance between Page 72 to 74 five sentences begin with Then, it was grating.
On editing I found it frustrating certain words were blocked out and I am trying to work out why especially at one point some pages only had four or five words to the page,
I found it very hard to find something positive about the book with the possible exception of the artwork of 'Air Souls', to sum this book up, a pile of bile.
August 30, 2017
This novel is possibly the quirkiest one I've ever read. It's set in a care home from hell, Green Oaks, which is directed/neglected by Raymond Cornish, a middle-aged guy who needs serious therapy himself and spends most of his time ensconced in his office, masturbating and leching over a teenage girl he can see out of the window at the bus stop most days and with whom he's determined to get his end away.
The residents of Green Oaks suffer from dementia in varying degrees. Their elected commander in chief is someone who calls himself Captain Ruggles, having constructed from his delusions a complete history of his heroic actions in the war. He's a wonderful character who you can't help but applaud for his constant rebellion against the Care Friends (Carers) whom he believes are Nazis controlling the prison camp of which he's an internee; hence his frequent attempted escapes.
The Care Friends are total pieces of work, especially with their Supervisor off his head on drugs most of the time. Of course the title “Care Friends” is a sick joke, as they are the worst enemies of the residents, and this is no delusion on the part of Captain Ruggles.
Adam Biles writes in a vivid and faultless literary style that plays on all the senses: in fact, his quality of writing is excellent. However, I decided to award his novel four rather than five stars for the following two reasons.
My first problem with the story is that in the real world, I cannot imagine a care home going so off the radar that it isn't subject to regular statuary inspections. In the case of somewhere as bad as Green Oaks, at the very least it would be subject to warnings to improve followed by unannounced inspections, but more likely it would be a candidate for instant closure. As for the residents' relatives, it seems too far-fetched that their visits are so rare and that they are so easily conned by the annual "show", when the Care Friends give the home a temporary face-lift for their benefit.
My second problem is that there is too much preoccupation with bodily functions. Yes, I know that people suffering from dementia lose control over their bowels and bladders, and can become generally disinhibited in their behaviour, but there is just an overdose of excrement of one kind and another. Also, there was one chapter in the book about a rotting corpse, where things became so gross that I had to skim read a number of pages, and skim reading is something I rarely do. So I feel bound to warn readers, do not open this novel when eating, as you will definitely lose your appetite fast.
Would I read another novel by Adam Biles? Yes. I love his originality and his fluent prose, plus, I think that if he keeps writing, he'll be a serious contender for a much-coveted literary prize sometime in the future.
As a footnote to this review, I feel compelled to give a special mention to the paperback edition that is in my possession as it's a wonder to behold. The publishers, Galley Beggar Press have produced a book that is simple and yet classy in design. I love the minimalism of the black cover, the blurb, and the author's bio. There are also some wondrous, surprising, and fun black and white illustrations by Melanie Amaral and Stephen Crowe throughout the book.
The residents of Green Oaks suffer from dementia in varying degrees. Their elected commander in chief is someone who calls himself Captain Ruggles, having constructed from his delusions a complete history of his heroic actions in the war. He's a wonderful character who you can't help but applaud for his constant rebellion against the Care Friends (Carers) whom he believes are Nazis controlling the prison camp of which he's an internee; hence his frequent attempted escapes.
The Care Friends are total pieces of work, especially with their Supervisor off his head on drugs most of the time. Of course the title “Care Friends” is a sick joke, as they are the worst enemies of the residents, and this is no delusion on the part of Captain Ruggles.
Adam Biles writes in a vivid and faultless literary style that plays on all the senses: in fact, his quality of writing is excellent. However, I decided to award his novel four rather than five stars for the following two reasons.
My first problem with the story is that in the real world, I cannot imagine a care home going so off the radar that it isn't subject to regular statuary inspections. In the case of somewhere as bad as Green Oaks, at the very least it would be subject to warnings to improve followed by unannounced inspections, but more likely it would be a candidate for instant closure. As for the residents' relatives, it seems too far-fetched that their visits are so rare and that they are so easily conned by the annual "show", when the Care Friends give the home a temporary face-lift for their benefit.
My second problem is that there is too much preoccupation with bodily functions. Yes, I know that people suffering from dementia lose control over their bowels and bladders, and can become generally disinhibited in their behaviour, but there is just an overdose of excrement of one kind and another. Also, there was one chapter in the book about a rotting corpse, where things became so gross that I had to skim read a number of pages, and skim reading is something I rarely do. So I feel bound to warn readers, do not open this novel when eating, as you will definitely lose your appetite fast.
Would I read another novel by Adam Biles? Yes. I love his originality and his fluent prose, plus, I think that if he keeps writing, he'll be a serious contender for a much-coveted literary prize sometime in the future.
As a footnote to this review, I feel compelled to give a special mention to the paperback edition that is in my possession as it's a wonder to behold. The publishers, Galley Beggar Press have produced a book that is simple and yet classy in design. I love the minimalism of the black cover, the blurb, and the author's bio. There are also some wondrous, surprising, and fun black and white illustrations by Melanie Amaral and Stephen Crowe throughout the book.
April 19, 2018
Read in french thanks to Netgalley, but since the book was originally published in english I thought I should review it in both languages. **
This book is a breath of fresh air, a delirious novel in which -nearly- the whole action takes place in a nursing home ran by tyrannic "carers that I loved to hate.
Every chapter is a new adventure in the war the old folks are leading to regain some dignity and freedom. They are punctuated by touching and more realistic moments that enables the reader to get closer to the patients characters in projecting what life could become in our older days. It's a story that makes you think about human resilience and the treatment we give to our elders but the tone, rather extravagant, makes this book a real page turner. I can't tell you how many times I burst out laughing while reading it.
Highly recommend it!
/////////
Ce livre est une bouffée d'air frais, un roman délirant ou -quasiment- toute l'action se déroule dans une maison de retraite menée par des "soignants" tyranniques que j'ai adoré détesté!
Chaque chapitre est une aventure dans la rébellion que mène les vieux pour retrouver leur liberté et leur dignité. Ils sont ponctuée de moments touchants et plus réalistes qui nous permettent de nous rapprocher des patients des chênes verts en nous projetant dans une future vieillesse qui nous attend tous. L'histoire pousse à la réflexion bien sur, sur le traitement de nos personnes âgées, et sur la résistance de l'être humain, mais le ton, plutôt absurde permet une lecture fluide et légère malgré tout. Je ne compte plus les fois ou j'ai ris au éclats en tournant les pages de cet excellent livre.
Je le recommande vivement !
This book is a breath of fresh air, a delirious novel in which -nearly- the whole action takes place in a nursing home ran by tyrannic "carers that I loved to hate.
Every chapter is a new adventure in the war the old folks are leading to regain some dignity and freedom. They are punctuated by touching and more realistic moments that enables the reader to get closer to the patients characters in projecting what life could become in our older days. It's a story that makes you think about human resilience and the treatment we give to our elders but the tone, rather extravagant, makes this book a real page turner. I can't tell you how many times I burst out laughing while reading it.
Highly recommend it!
/////////
Ce livre est une bouffée d'air frais, un roman délirant ou -quasiment- toute l'action se déroule dans une maison de retraite menée par des "soignants" tyranniques que j'ai adoré détesté!
Chaque chapitre est une aventure dans la rébellion que mène les vieux pour retrouver leur liberté et leur dignité. Ils sont ponctuée de moments touchants et plus réalistes qui nous permettent de nous rapprocher des patients des chênes verts en nous projetant dans une future vieillesse qui nous attend tous. L'histoire pousse à la réflexion bien sur, sur le traitement de nos personnes âgées, et sur la résistance de l'être humain, mais le ton, plutôt absurde permet une lecture fluide et légère malgré tout. Je ne compte plus les fois ou j'ai ris au éclats en tournant les pages de cet excellent livre.
Je le recommande vivement !
September 29, 2022
I read this book when I was in Paris for the first time. I just happened to pick it up at the store and spent my vacation reading it in cafes and Montmartre; so it holds a special place in my heart. That being said, I loved this book. I'm always partial to novels that tell a story unlike anything I've heard before, and Feeding Time is nothing if not unusual.
I couldn't have predicted where this book would lead if I had tried, and that is my favorite type of story. I have recommended this book to many people, and it still has a special place on my shelf. When I read it, I am reminded of those hot weeks in Paris.
I couldn't have predicted where this book would lead if I had tried, and that is my favorite type of story. I have recommended this book to many people, and it still has a special place on my shelf. When I read it, I am reminded of those hot weeks in Paris.
May 14, 2020
This is an excellent book. It is highly literate, intelligent and experimental, but none of those things get in the way of readability, plot and fully-formed, mostly sympathetic characters.
I really don’t want to give away too much, but the writing is lovely, the pastiche pitch-perfect and it contains a wonderful mixture of fun and darkness. It’s masterful black humour, but with more depth than that implies. I got very fond of (almost) every character, and actually felt rather sorry for those who turned out to be villains, too.
I really don’t want to give away too much, but the writing is lovely, the pastiche pitch-perfect and it contains a wonderful mixture of fun and darkness. It’s masterful black humour, but with more depth than that implies. I got very fond of (almost) every character, and actually felt rather sorry for those who turned out to be villains, too.
September 28, 2018
We read this at our book club recently.The characterisation is fabulous and there are laugh out loud moments on one page; then on the next, moments of deeply unsettlingly violence and abuse. Reminded my a little of Thomas Pynchon in terms of hysterical realism. Interested to see what this writer publishes next.
January 13, 2023
Après une tentative laborieuse d'achever ce livre, et quelques temps de réflexion philosophique plus tard, j'abandonne ce livre de près de 500 pages.
J'avoue que la première chose qui m'a convaincu de lire ce livre est la couverture. Note pour l'avenir: Si un jour je finis en CHSLD ( Centre Hospitaliers de Soins Longue Duré, les centres pour les aînés non-autonomes du Québec), priez de me donner mes pilules sur un petit cupcake comme sur la couverture! Parfum chocolat, de préférence.
Je peinais à lire ce roman. D'abord, je pense que le jargon du traducteur ne m'aide en rien. Spécialement avec le personnage de Frankie. En temps normal, le dialecte des francophones européens ne me pose pas trop de problème, mais là j'ai plus de mal. Une plus grande présence de français international aurait été appréciée, ça me peine de le dire. Ensuite, les dialogues: ils manquent de précisions, on ignore parfois qui parle quand et dans quel ordre.
L'histoire est longue. Si l'idée de base semblait prometteuse, le manque de rythme aplanit le récit un peu trop. Et plus j'avance, plus l'humour me semble de premier degré, parfois même un peu trop "anal". Les personnages ne sont pas sympathiques, pas même la principale. Pourtant, une bande de vieux débris qui s'introduisent par nom, prénoms et diagnostic, ça semblait promettre des êtres colorés. Dot, la protagoniste, est introduite comme une enseignante avec un caractère solide et possédant une expérience qui font qu'on ne lui en passe plus de belles. Une femme qu'on imagine rentrer dans une résidence pour aîné planté comme un chêne sur ses pieds, le dialecte facile et une attitude qui ne supporterait aucunes concessions. Or, loin de là, cette dame semble littéralement se ratatiner sur elle-même à la limite du fantôme. Que s'est-il passé?
Je dois dire que c'est tout de même dommage, car ce livre n'est pas totalement dénué de sens. On a pas beaucoup de romans qui aborde le délicat sujet des résidences pour ainés. Malheureusement, je peine à lui trouver des raison de l'aimer ou même de le finir.
Un dernier élément à noter: bien que j'apprécie la tentative de l'auteur de faire un livre sur un sujet aussi peu traité que les résidences pour aînés, avec tous les abus et manquements qu'on leur connait ( à certains, pas à tous), je trouve que le roman manque de ..."classe"? ...de "respect"...je ne trouve pas le mot, mais il dégage un certain malaise. Comme si, en voulant rire de manière ironique d'une situation qui prête au cynisme, on en arrive au point où ce n'est plus tant de la dénonciation que de rire d'une situation qui n'a rien de comique. Je salue donc la tentative, mais n'apprécie pas trop le final.
Avec un tiers de lu, c'est le premier livre que j'abandonne officiellement. Je n'en suis pas fière, mais trop de livre attendent d'être lus.
Catégorisation: Roman fiction anglais, littérature adulte
Note: 2/10
J'avoue que la première chose qui m'a convaincu de lire ce livre est la couverture. Note pour l'avenir: Si un jour je finis en CHSLD ( Centre Hospitaliers de Soins Longue Duré, les centres pour les aînés non-autonomes du Québec), priez de me donner mes pilules sur un petit cupcake comme sur la couverture! Parfum chocolat, de préférence.
Je peinais à lire ce roman. D'abord, je pense que le jargon du traducteur ne m'aide en rien. Spécialement avec le personnage de Frankie. En temps normal, le dialecte des francophones européens ne me pose pas trop de problème, mais là j'ai plus de mal. Une plus grande présence de français international aurait été appréciée, ça me peine de le dire. Ensuite, les dialogues: ils manquent de précisions, on ignore parfois qui parle quand et dans quel ordre.
L'histoire est longue. Si l'idée de base semblait prometteuse, le manque de rythme aplanit le récit un peu trop. Et plus j'avance, plus l'humour me semble de premier degré, parfois même un peu trop "anal". Les personnages ne sont pas sympathiques, pas même la principale. Pourtant, une bande de vieux débris qui s'introduisent par nom, prénoms et diagnostic, ça semblait promettre des êtres colorés. Dot, la protagoniste, est introduite comme une enseignante avec un caractère solide et possédant une expérience qui font qu'on ne lui en passe plus de belles. Une femme qu'on imagine rentrer dans une résidence pour aîné planté comme un chêne sur ses pieds, le dialecte facile et une attitude qui ne supporterait aucunes concessions. Or, loin de là, cette dame semble littéralement se ratatiner sur elle-même à la limite du fantôme. Que s'est-il passé?
Je dois dire que c'est tout de même dommage, car ce livre n'est pas totalement dénué de sens. On a pas beaucoup de romans qui aborde le délicat sujet des résidences pour ainés. Malheureusement, je peine à lui trouver des raison de l'aimer ou même de le finir.
Un dernier élément à noter: bien que j'apprécie la tentative de l'auteur de faire un livre sur un sujet aussi peu traité que les résidences pour aînés, avec tous les abus et manquements qu'on leur connait ( à certains, pas à tous), je trouve que le roman manque de ..."classe"? ...de "respect"...je ne trouve pas le mot, mais il dégage un certain malaise. Comme si, en voulant rire de manière ironique d'une situation qui prête au cynisme, on en arrive au point où ce n'est plus tant de la dénonciation que de rire d'une situation qui n'a rien de comique. Je salue donc la tentative, mais n'apprécie pas trop le final.
Avec un tiers de lu, c'est le premier livre que j'abandonne officiellement. Je n'en suis pas fière, mais trop de livre attendent d'être lus.
Catégorisation: Roman fiction anglais, littérature adulte
Note: 2/10
July 20, 2025
I got this book in Shakespeare & Co, after I fell in love with the bookstore and its history. When I saw the Literary Director of this wonderful place had written a highly acclaimed book, I said “can’t go wrong with this, right?” Wrong.
Reminded me of the times when I read transgressive fiction as a teenager and thought they were groundbreaking. Don’t get me wrong, they did break my grounds as a young woman growing up in a relatively strict environment, however as I grew older, I realized that most of these novels didn’t actually challenge the norms with profound observations. They just created characters that behave against society, and did it in a repulsive manner.
Adam Biles is unfortunately doing something very similar. The scene he chose is full of promises, a ‘retirement home’, where loose grip on reality is the norm, however he doesn’t tell anything substantial about the situation, instead decides to write a detail scene of an elderly guy shitting and smearing feces on himself, as well as a very unfortunately detailed scene of desecration of a corpse.
As insult to injury, he forces the reader to follow a middle-aged manager, who is the worst person to exist, masturbates to the image of the elderly under his care, and then goes ahead and commits statutory rape. Even more disturbed is the fact that the author made a conscious decision to describe a 16 year old “primordially attuned to Cornish’s basest desires” and make an entire chapter trying to convince us that this GIRL was so talented in sex, such willing participant.
In the end, I feel like I forced myself to go on a date with a guy that has no personality except having a ‘edgy dark humor’, thinks he can say anything as long as its ‘a joke’.
Reminded me of the times when I read transgressive fiction as a teenager and thought they were groundbreaking. Don’t get me wrong, they did break my grounds as a young woman growing up in a relatively strict environment, however as I grew older, I realized that most of these novels didn’t actually challenge the norms with profound observations. They just created characters that behave against society, and did it in a repulsive manner.
Adam Biles is unfortunately doing something very similar. The scene he chose is full of promises, a ‘retirement home’, where loose grip on reality is the norm, however he doesn’t tell anything substantial about the situation, instead decides to write a detail scene of an elderly guy shitting and smearing feces on himself, as well as a very unfortunately detailed scene of desecration of a corpse.
As insult to injury, he forces the reader to follow a middle-aged manager, who is the worst person to exist, masturbates to the image of the elderly under his care, and then goes ahead and commits statutory rape. Even more disturbed is the fact that the author made a conscious decision to describe a 16 year old “primordially attuned to Cornish’s basest desires” and make an entire chapter trying to convince us that this GIRL was so talented in sex, such willing participant.
In the end, I feel like I forced myself to go on a date with a guy that has no personality except having a ‘edgy dark humor’, thinks he can say anything as long as its ‘a joke’.
July 2, 2023
Adam Biles Feeding Time has been one of those books that I always take with me when I go abroad and then never manage to read it but after hearing that Biles has a new novel out soon, I thought I might as well read it.
Sometimes I think that early Galley Beggars was in a strange stage. On one hand they published some experimental fiction and then occasionally they would publish a slightly less than conventional novel. Feeding Time falls into the latter.
Dorothy is moving into an old age home after sending her husband there. The problem is that when she arrives she cannot find him. At the same time she bonds with the other residents who also have their fair share of ailments.
Things are not easy for the other people who work there as well; the non committal boss of the home is suffering from an unhappy marriage and begins an affair with a younger girl. One of the co-workers has a drug habit and has a habit of visiting another inhabitant on one of the top floors and where did Leonard go?
Feeding Time is a book about the trappings of old age, especially with dementia – one of the more interesting sub plots consists of a adventure style magazine which one character reads and then tries to mimic. In the end though it’s a book about surviving.
Although I did like the plot structure and the use of illustrations, my problem with Feeding Time is a big one – I did not like the style at all. It’s in the same casual way that authors such as Paul Murray, Steve Toltz and Richard Osman write: funny conversational. Personally this grates and it was a bit of an effort to finish the book.
To date I’ve never been disappointed by a Galley beggar book as their standards are high but sadly, I didn’t get along with this one.
Sometimes I think that early Galley Beggars was in a strange stage. On one hand they published some experimental fiction and then occasionally they would publish a slightly less than conventional novel. Feeding Time falls into the latter.
Dorothy is moving into an old age home after sending her husband there. The problem is that when she arrives she cannot find him. At the same time she bonds with the other residents who also have their fair share of ailments.
Things are not easy for the other people who work there as well; the non committal boss of the home is suffering from an unhappy marriage and begins an affair with a younger girl. One of the co-workers has a drug habit and has a habit of visiting another inhabitant on one of the top floors and where did Leonard go?
Feeding Time is a book about the trappings of old age, especially with dementia – one of the more interesting sub plots consists of a adventure style magazine which one character reads and then tries to mimic. In the end though it’s a book about surviving.
Although I did like the plot structure and the use of illustrations, my problem with Feeding Time is a big one – I did not like the style at all. It’s in the same casual way that authors such as Paul Murray, Steve Toltz and Richard Osman write: funny conversational. Personally this grates and it was a bit of an effort to finish the book.
To date I’ve never been disappointed by a Galley beggar book as their standards are high but sadly, I didn’t get along with this one.
June 22, 2020
Feeding Time by Adam Biles is definitely one of the more obscure books I’ve read. It documents the experience of a group of elderly residents who are striving to make their way in a poorly managed old people’s home called Green Oaks. The narrative follows Dot, a newcomer at the care home who has decided to join her husband who suffers from dementia. However, due to his mental condition, Dot’s husband has been sectioned away from the other residents. In order to be reunited with him, Dot must conspire alongside the other residents against the home’s corrupt and incompetent management.
I absolutely adore Bile’s anarchic imagination in this novel. His attention to the heartbreaking, comedic, and endearing aspects of old age make this novel a joy to read. Given the world’s current situation, it would appear that too many people are finding it easy to forget about an entire generation; their old age and ‘underlying health conditions’ rendering them a simple statistic. To those people, I offer this book. With it, I invite you to rethink the ways in which we treat the elderly, as well as consider more thoughtfully the ways in which we can learn from them.
I absolutely adore Bile’s anarchic imagination in this novel. His attention to the heartbreaking, comedic, and endearing aspects of old age make this novel a joy to read. Given the world’s current situation, it would appear that too many people are finding it easy to forget about an entire generation; their old age and ‘underlying health conditions’ rendering them a simple statistic. To those people, I offer this book. With it, I invite you to rethink the ways in which we treat the elderly, as well as consider more thoughtfully the ways in which we can learn from them.
April 16, 2024
I've seen a few reviews saying that Biles bit off a bit more than he could chew, and I agree. I enjoyed reading it, I just wasn't exactly sure what I was reading. Some of the characters, like Ruggles, Dot, Betty, Olive, Smithy, Lanyard, etc. were so incredibly human—particularly Ruggles and Dot—and I felt that the point of the novel was within them. Cornish and Tristan were too far beyond the bounds of normal morality to me, which, I suppose, could have been the point? But to make the point of the administration of Green Oaks being corrupt and neglectful did not require the pedophilia and gore that Cornish and Tristan's stories brought into the narrative. Maybe I just didn't get it, but like I said, I think Biles overestimated his ability to make his point. If you cannot make it exceedingly clear why Cornish needed to have a relationship with a freshly sixteen-year-old girl, maybe he shouldn't! Maybe he doesn't need to dismember Kalki's body? What the hell was all of that about Tristan going into the closet with Kalki's dead body?? Was he ever actually on Oxy or was Frankie giving him candy the whole time? I don't know; maybe this book just went over my head.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
June 15, 2023
Three stars because it was a bit zany for my taste, and I don’t need 400+ pages of a wacky caper. Also took a good while to get into the story—the setup seemed to go on too long and it took a bit of time to keep track of some of the residents. Has a bit of the same frantic energy and gory bodily details as On the Run with Mary, maybe, so this is for someone. But I have to give Biles credit; this is an insanely ambitious book, told in a way that couldn’t be adapted for screen, and uses that wacky adventure approach to avoid what would otherwise be a depressing story about the worst possible retirement home scenario you can imagine. There’s potential for absolutely everything in dementia.
This book is at its best when we get hints of the Leonard and Dot backstory, the tenderness, the fear, the violence. In a flashback she’s reminded of what led up to him going into the home, and him trying to burn the skin off his hands — “That’s. Not. My Skin. That skin. Is old.” — oof, that’s a heartbreaker.
This book is at its best when we get hints of the Leonard and Dot backstory, the tenderness, the fear, the violence. In a flashback she’s reminded of what led up to him going into the home, and him trying to burn the skin off his hands — “That’s. Not. My Skin. That skin. Is old.” — oof, that’s a heartbreaker.
September 10, 2024
Dark, raw and humorous. Biles writing drew me in from the beginning, though some of the bits of Captain Ruggles I sludged through. Here for Dot’s reflections.
“Dot had never believed in ghosts, but neither was she one of those tawdry little materialists, who limited life by limiting their vocabularies to dull, *reasonable* words. She had long felt the limitations of our meat-and-bone machines, first instinctively, then through bitter experience. But neither could she accept that the whole universe was a soulless, purposeless machine, just grinding away. Who was she to deny this house some form of agency beyond her understanding”
“Dot had never believed in ghosts, but neither was she one of those tawdry little materialists, who limited life by limiting their vocabularies to dull, *reasonable* words. She had long felt the limitations of our meat-and-bone machines, first instinctively, then through bitter experience. But neither could she accept that the whole universe was a soulless, purposeless machine, just grinding away. Who was she to deny this house some form of agency beyond her understanding”
August 26, 2021
What a very disappointingly silly book - I gave up after a few attempts. The Guardian said it was 'dazzling and darkly funny' - I suggest it is trying too hard to be funny and in fact is ridiculous , cringemaking rubbish. I inspected Care Homes and Wards for the elderly for Age UK and the CQC - does Adam Biles really think that there would ever be 7 people in a room and only 3 carers? Kafkaesque? Surreal? No silly, pointless and all the characters have the same voices. - very poor!
December 30, 2022
Perhaps it’s about what happens when young people who’ve lost all hope for the future find themselves bored at work. Projecting their self-loathing onto their vulnerable charges, they drive themselves progressively mad.
https://annegoodwin.weebly.com/annecd...
https://annegoodwin.weebly.com/annecd...
May 2, 2025
Mon premier abandon de lecture de l'année. Je suis complètement passé à côté de cet univers incohérent, caricatural, qui confond EHPAD et asile stéréotypé. 200 pages plus tard, j'ai refermé le livre sans regret.
November 24, 2017
Not the happiest subject, but darkly funny and poignant.
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