I’m enormously grateful to Caitlin Rayner of Headline and Tinder Press and to Team Bookends for each sending me a copy of The Six Loves of Billy Binns in return for an honest review.

Published by Headline imprint Tinder Press on 24th January 2019, The Six Loves of Billy Binns is available for purchase through these links.

The Six Loves of Billy Binns

I remember my dreams but not where they start.
Further back, I recall some of yesterday and the day before that. Then everything goes into a haze.
Fragments of memories come looming back like red London buses in a pea-souper.
Time plays funny tricks these days.
I wait for the next memory. I wait and I wait.

At 117 years old, Billy Binns is the oldest man in Europe and he knows his time is almost up. But Billy has a final wish: he wants to remember what love feels like one last time. As he looks back at the relationships that have shaped his flawed life – and the events that shaped the century – he recalls a life full of hope, mistakes, heartbreak and, above all, love.

My review of The Six Loves of Billy Binns

An old man, Billy Binns looks back over his life and tries to write his memoir.

I’m going to get one negative out of the way in my review of The Six Loves of Billy Binns. I found some of the language rather crude, especially when associated with Clem or referring to parts of the female anatomy, and as I am very broad minded I feel that might be an issue for some readers. That said, this particular lexicon is era appropriate and so I can see how it is used to convey the past. It just didn’t always suit my reader preferences.

That small negative aside, there is, in contrast, frequently quite a poetic turn of phrase that I did love, especially through the descriptions of setting or appearance so that I could picture things very vividly. References to nature in particular had a beautiful quality. I also thought the variety of sentence structure was very well constructed. Single sentence paragraphs exemplify the speed of some thoughts and memories perfectly, whilst occasional ellipsis conveys the difficulty Billy sometimes has in grasping his past. I especially liked the structure of the book, almost as a traditional five act play with its five parts, and the blurring of lines between Billy’s memories and his present situation gave a chimerical feeling which reflected well the way Billy has to reinvent himself at times in his life.

From a slightly shaky start I ended up really enjoying The Six Loves of Billy Binns. I was expecting more humour, but not as much pathos and at times I found Billy’s story quite heartbreaking, particularly with regard to Evie. I thought the way Richard Lumsden showed how fate intervenes and our paths follow a direction we neither ask for nor want at times, was sensitively presented so that although Billy does make mistakes, very often he had far more of my sympathy than disapprobation. The more I read, the more Billy became a believable, human and empathetic character. The loves he describes felt completely believable to me.

Reading The Six Loves of Billy Binns made me feel quite melancholic as a result of the poignancy behind Billy’s memories. I wanted so much more for him than he appeared to achieve and yet the ending of the book has an encouragingly uplifting quality in spite of all Billy’s experiences and frequent errors of judgement.

Richard Lumsden weaves social history into The Six Loves of Billy Binns very effectively. I really enjoyed the backdrop of the two world wars, the swinging sixties and so on. I thought the themes of race and gender, domestic violence, war and class structure all added to the layers so that historical times leapt from the page.

I think The Six Loves of Billy Binns will polarise readers. I began not liking it at all and ended up thoroughly enjoying it and understanding why the early parts of the novel that made me so uncomfortable had to be there to give authenticity and integrity to the narrative. I think The Six Loves of Billy Binns needs to be read so that every individual reader can come to their own conclusion. Why not try it for yourself?

About Richard Lumsden

Richard Lumsden has worked as an actor, writer and composer in television, film and theatre for 30 years. As an actor his films include Downhill, Sightseers, Sense and Sensibility and The Darkest Hour, as well as numerous television shows and theatre productions. The Six Loves of Billy Binns is his first novel.

You can follow Richard on Twitter @lumsdenrich and visit his website for more information.