It’s All Right Now is the first novel for 72-year old Charles Chadwick. Chadwick logs the diary entries of middle-aged family man Tom Ripple. When the book begins Ripple is married to his controlling wife, has two kids who generally ignore him and a boss that will fire him if he makes one mistake. When two new neighbors move to either side of his London-area home, these dynamics begin to slowly change. Chadwick writes with great detail reminding me a bit of Jonathan Franzen. Ripple’s wry and humorous observances keep the book somewhat interesting, but following his life’s everyday details for nearly 700 pages gets tiring. The narrative also wanders aimlessly at times, but the author seems determined to include as many minute details as he could. Nevertheless, Chadwick set his goals high and created a better than average debut novel.
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