The Authenticity Project

by Claire Pooley

This was a telephone box library find. I just happened to be browsing, thought it looked interesting and took it home. I am so glad I did – I have just loved it from start to finish!

This is the debut novel by Claire Pooley and was nominated as a Radio 2 Book club pick and won the RNA Debut Novel Award.

It all begins with a simple green notebook that is left in Monica’s Café. Julian Jessop is the person responsible for starting The Authenticity Project. He is 79 (perhaps!), a former artist and lonely since the death of his wife. He is a firm believer that people put on a ‘front’ and are never really honest about their lives.  He is intrigued to know what would happen if people really were honest and so he writes about his own life in the book, describing his loneliness and the fact that he may not see or speak to anyone for days and he leaves the book in his favourite café.  It is found by Monica.

Monica is super-efficient, obsessively tidy and worrying that she will never marry and have children. Time is speeding by. She has her own business but worries that she won’t earn enough to pay the bills. She writes about her desire to be a mum and leaves the book in a wine bar.

And so, the story goes on.  The book is picked up by a succession of people: Hazard a loud boorish drug and alcohol addict who flees to Thailand to detox and takes the book with him; laid back Australian Riley who travels to England and finds the book in his backpack and Alice, the ‘perfect mummy’ on Instagram who leads a less than perfect life in reality!

All of these strangers find themselves pulled together in their search for honesty and their desire to try to help others. As they discover the notebook, read the entries and then add their own, they find that their own lives change dramatically and for the better in the process and a new community is born out of friendship and support.

After reading the previous entry, each character aims to help the writer. Monica wants to stop Julian being lonely so sets up an art group one evening each week in her café, with Julian running it. Hazard tries to find the perfect man for Monica, one who might fulfil her long list of requirements and so on. As their stories intertwine, all the characters gravitate towards the café becoming a tight knit group working together to make their local community a better place and to improve their own lives, recognising that although nobody’s life is perfect, it can be made better with the support of good friends.

This is a lovely book which takes you through a range of emotions. It is easy to identify with some of the characters and their situations and it makes you think.  We are all very good at ‘putting on a front’ or posting the perfect settings on social media, but is that the real truth? Are we all hiding the reality in search of the perfect lifestyle? Too afraid to be honest and admit that our lives may not be as perfect as we want them to be?

All the characters are likeable – maybe not at first but definitely by the end, they all have flaws and they all end up in situations they would wish to avoid but ultimately there is a happy ending. The story lifts the spirits, though it is both funny and sad at times and does reflect true life and the simple saying that ‘Life is not always what we make it out to be.’

Maybe we should all be a little  more truthful and honest and more aware that the majority of people are hiding the reality of their lives and the difficulties that they are facing. If we are more willing to listen, help and support others, we too can create a stronger and more supportive community.