Mad Dogs and an English Girl

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Category:	Fiction
Author:	Caroline Waterman
Publisher:	Matador
Price:	£8.99
ISBN:	97819055886937
Pages:	232
Reviewed in issue:	7

This is an adventurous travelogue about a young girl travelling from England to Spain in the 1950s and appears to be auto-biographical. She is about to move in with a family in order to teach English to the family Vazquez, and especially Tomasin, the eldest son. She got the job through a Spanish boy she met in London when she was working in tourism. Because Doctor Vazquez has roving hands, she has to move out and move in with her friend, his secretary, Anita. She then starts freelance teaching and learning typing.

It soon becomes apparent that Spain was not as she imagined. Gone were the wooded hills and rushing streams of the Basque Country. Instead there was a panorama of yellow-grey stubble dotted with endless sheaves of wheat. A vast expanse of treeless earth burning under the relentless sun.

She finds an impoverished, backward-looking country, afraid to speak in its own Basque tongue, terrified Spaniards still living in a Police State after the Civil War of the 1930s. The characters that the author meets are engaging and jump from the pages in glorious Technicolor. There are several would-be love affairs, and an American millionaire who drives her and Anita all over Spain while they are on holiday... the locals constantly reminding her that Spanish girls shouldn’t be out alone like that.

The bright-yellow cover of this book suggests that it is a light-hearted comedy, but I’m not too sure about the title. Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed this well-written book, and hope for sequel.

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