Things My Girlfriend and I Have Argued About by Mil Millington.
From the back cover: “Pel Dalton leads an uneventful life. His days are spent bluffing his way through an IT job in the university library, pillow-fighting with his two sons, surviving family outings to the supermarket, and finding new things to argue about with Ursula, his German girlfriend. But things are about to change…”
Thank goodness for the glowing snippets of reviews on the book cover (“…wickedly funny…”, “…sharply written…”, etc.) because that back cover summary is lame and doesn’t come close to capturing the spirit or tone of the book. Pel’s life isn’t “uneventful” — it’s teetering on the brink of disaster. He’s consumed with trying to conceal just how out of his depth he is at work, is engaged in a love/hate (but mostly hate) relationship with Ursula and is overwhelmed with the demands of raising young children. It would be really depressing if the writing weren’t so witty and sly.
Millington’s novel is based on his website, which is so ugly and hard to read it makes my eyes bleed, but is very entertaining.
Final word: Highly recommended.