The Three-Legged Stool: More Confessions Of A Forty-Something F**k Up By Alexandra Potter

Have you noticed what a perfect world we live in? Well, according to social media at least, where everyone seems to enjoy the ideal existence. I’ve done it myself: posted the photo of four smiling faces with a ‘what a lovely day with besties – and so lucky with the weather.’
I didn’t post a photo from the day at Saltburn-by-Sea when the sea fret was so thick we sat at the waterfront café, muffled up to the eyebrows, looking at a grey blur because we couldn’t actually see the water. No one is interested in seeing your misery but for some people whose lives aren’t perfect (and by that, I mean everyone), it sometimes feels that those heavily curated posts suggest everyone has it good except….but as the Prologue makes clear, this is ‘a book about a messy life in a world of perfect Instagram ones’ and I think we can all relate to that.

I admit I winced when I weighed this thick tome in my hands and I raised my eyebrows at the title but I really didn’t need to. Celia Walden of The Telegraph called it ‘The new Bridget Jones of our time’ and although my first thought was, ‘not again, it’s been done before’, I loved Bridget and if this was a renaissance, I was prepared to give it a go (even though, as is frequently my lot, I have clearly missed Book One!) It has proved to be a quick read – at least, it is when you find you don’t want to put the book down.

The novel covers one year in the life of Nell Stevens (and her friends) and it’s pretty full on. Nell, the narrator, is quite a different character from Bridget Jones and this novel has quite a different tone. I was quickly hooked. There is humour – plenty of it - and some irreverence, but there are also moments of poignancy and it is more thought-provoking between the laughter. Is organizing a wedding as simple as ‘drinking champers with my friends, trying on gorgeous dresses, picking out beautiful flowers and laughing with gay abandon’, or is it spreadsheets, budgets, mothers and trying not to offend absolutely everyone? I think we all know the answer to that. And after all, isn’t a marriage really about what comes after the wedding – if you get that far.

When the novel opens, Nell (or Penelope to give her her Sunday name) is forty-something, single, living in London, with an engagement behind her and, having returned from a brief residency in America, is writing obituaries, to make ends meet. She also hosts a podcast which is understated throughout the novel but comes into its own quite significantly, before the end.

The Pandemic is over and social get-togethers are once more allowed (yes, there will be a few novels about the Pandemic - before, during and after). How much do we recognize about ‘Re-entry’ as Potter calls it? FOGO – fear of going out, of dragging clothes from the wardrobe which haven’t seen the light of day since March 2020 and seem to have shrunk; seeing people we haven’t seen in over a year and having to overcome the awkward, ‘Do we elbow bump or hug?’ Potter reminds us of all those sensations we thought we’d never forget… and somehow, have. (Well, I had!)

Nell, fairly quickly, finds herself engaged to her long-term chap, Edward, which brings with it a whole new raft of problems. Getting married when you’re older is always more difficult because you both carry baggage: kids, ex’s, memories, expectations and disappointments as well as ‘stuff’ – far too much stuff for two people to fit into one house! It all makes relationships much harder than when we were carefree teenagers, setting out in life, and as all teenagers will tell you, that’s hard enough. And then there’s the ‘unexpected baggage’, things you thought you’d dealt with and suddenly find that you haven’t. Nell negotiates the minefield of parents and friends, and faces the prospect of becoming a stepmum to twin boys – well, young men - while harbouring her own very private and secret disappointment. She learns not only that ‘while broken hearts heal…you never forget’, but also the need to be true to yourself. It’s not fair on anyone if you try to be something you’re not.

And more touching, is the advice Potter offers on more than one occasion: ‘Look forward, don’t look back’. Life is not all fun and games – ‘you can’t hide forever’. Another piece of sage advice I loved, coming from Nell’s eighty-something, ex-actress friend, oddly known as Cricket, was ‘Don’t worry about getting older, worry about becoming dull,’ although even she admits ‘ageing is not for sissies.’ She is good for Nell and reminds her that ‘you can have everything but if you lose [your sense of humour] life can’t be much fun’. She and Nell were saved from the Pandemic by M&S thermals (you’ll have to read the book to understand) and post-pandemic, it is Cricket who persuades her that they should attend a ‘make your own coffin’ class. Imaginations run riot: there’s the tartan lined one, the one covered with stamps and the glitter-on-willow look. Cricket, ‘a rebellious spirit’, is practicing her graffiti art for the outside of hers. It gives new meaning to the Girl Guide motto: Be prepared - and provides good jumper storage, under the bed, in the meantime.

Cricket is full of surprises. She does have a bit of a history, not all of which she has shared with Nell, and it’s her life experience which prompts her to offer wise advice. Amongst other things she tells her: ‘that’s the brilliant thing about love. It never gets old. Forget a face cream, fall in love’ and ‘books are heavy because they carry the weight of our imaginations’. In fact, there is so much good, sound, sensible advice (and I don’t mean the ‘don’t forget your hankie’ sort, though you will need one, particularly towards the end) that I found myself wanting to write out great swathes of text which would be silly because you must read it for yourself. So much of it applies to so many of us. Nell asks her podcast guests if life has turned out the way they expected. I doubt there are many who could answer in the affirmative but that’s what makes it such a big adventure. As the eight-year-old on the bouncy castle explains, ‘if you get knocked down, you just get up again.’

Nell has to navigate choppy waters during these twelve months, with one friend seriously unwell, ‘you can’t worry someone well’, says Cricket wisely; another contemplating divorce – oh, and another. Yet another is pregnant as she marries her wife – in LA. Then there’s Annabel, the life coach; well, there’s always one suitably annoying fly in the ointment.

The novel explores society’s attitude to age, to women, to parenthood and loss, to family and relationships – of all kinds –and the importance of friendships and of talking. It looks at the power of coincidence and offers a new insight into the menopause and getting old. I loved the metaphor of Kintsugi, a Japanese art form we should all know about. And, simply put, I loved this book.

PS. Who knew there was a World Nutella Day? Now you’re talking!