Robin Anderson Author Reviews

La Di Da Di Bloody Da!

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

"Robin Anderson Is Incredibly Funny & Wickedly Clever...!"

Wildly witty, inventive and audacious “La Di Da Di Bloody Da!” pulses with raunchy energy as Anderson puts
the pedal to the metal to give us a bracing slice of LGBTQ Fiction.

In the hands of another author, “La Di Da Di Bloody Da!” could have been glib and smug, but it isn’t and none
of this will be news for fans of Anderson’s novels whose signature prose is baroque, funny drama, with the
pulse of sincerity beating below its glittering surface.

In typical Anderson fashion, he thrusts a subculture into the mainstream without explanation or a lecture on identity politics. “La Di Da Di Bloody Da!” merely walks the walk and occupies its space with Anderson’s casting allowing him to move well beyond the usual clichés that establish characters as trans, to lift “La Di Da Di Bloody Da!” into a subtly defiant piece of fiction.

In its opening pages you might not be sure where it’s heading as Miranda and Kookie exchange razor-sharp barbs of wit but “La Di Da Di Bloody Da!” is a comedy laced with rambunctious, exuberantly ragged dialogue with Anderson revelling in the power of clichés and double entendre. And on this level, his triumph is primarily a matter of style and visionary revelation that’s every bit as expressionistic as Miranda and Kookie’s electric sense of fashion!

It’s around “transvestites of Taste; never Tackiness” Miranda Maracona and Kookie Kombuis that “La Di Da Di Bloody Da!” bounces between fantastical indulgence and perpetual scheming but as with Anderson’s “Omnipotent” and “Pillow Squawk” he still allows us to believe in their characters. It’s not enough for them to simply survive the web they’ve spun, they thrive, and it’s this insistence that defines “La Di Da Di Bloody Da!” from the very beginning.

To describe “La Di Da Di Bloody Da!” as simply good would be derisory. It’s incredibly funny, wickedly clever, but also strangely touching and defines Anderson’s repertoire. A five star read it is unreservedly recommended.

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★ ★ ★ ★

"We are transvestites with taste, not transvestites of tackiness!"
GRADY HARP - AMAZON
December 27, 2011

Robin Anderson takes a million and one chances in this stingingly funny novel and his writing style is so adept that he knows exactly how to balance camp with storyline. A little background: Anderson was born in Scotland and educated in Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe, and South Africa and while his novels have a decidedly bent twist, his day job is that of an internationally respected interior designer. And in that field he likely hasencountered much of the classy fodder he molds into this book.

The story peels the exterior off two wildly entertaining transvestites - Miz Miranda Maracona (the mouthy and grossly endowed white one) and Miz Kookie Kombuis (the outrageous black one) - who own an agency for `men with special needs' in London at Soho's Old Crompton Street, the MK agency. Proud of their multiple physical gifts, they vie for attention from gentlemen callers (the spectacularly endowed Templeton among them) until they encounter Prince Igor Pisskossovitch who not only requests their unique services but ends up displacing our divas to Bejesustan `where camp is the watchword and coups d'etat the national sport.' To attempt to make sense of the progress of this novel would rob the reader of the pleasures of following these ladies of distinction down the yellow brick road to one of the wildest and most risqué adventures placed in book form.

No holds barred here, and there are probably no equal contenders for novels of this nature; Robin Anderson knows his business.
For a long evening of hilarity and pleasure and blushing settle in to LA DI DA DI BLOODY DA! and have a great time! Grady Harp, December 11.

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Amos Lassen - What a read! Over-the-top!

If you have not heard of Robin Anderson before, you will especially since his novel, "La Di Da Di Bloody Da" is now available from Lethe Press. It is a story with something for everyone: assassins, lovers, intrigue, sophistication, divided loyalties, humor and it is great fun.

Our heroes are "transvestites of taste"; Miz Miranda Maracona and Miz Kookie Kombuis who run a special agency in London at Soho's Old Crompton Street, the MK agency. They both have tremendous talent and tremendous endowment and they have what the discerning person who is looking for something different wants. When Prince Igor Pisskossovitch comes to them looking for something they find him what he needs but they also find themselves in the principality of Bejesustan where camp rules and overthrowing the government is the national pastime. But this story is about courtly love that becomes a state affair.

The plot is totally ridiculous but I do not mean that in a negative sense. Miz Miranda and Miz Kookie have a "love date agency" and because of this they find themselves in all kinds of strange situations that include intrigue and plenty sex. Everything seems to happen very quickly and it is amazing that the author could keep the humor up with the action. But there is a lot of everything here and at times I had to slow my reading to keep up with the story. We are plunged into a world that most of us have no idea that it exists. Anderson gives us over-the-top characters who become involved in over-the-top situations that happen at over-the-top speed. Everything here is hyper and I loved it.

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★ ★ ★ ★

Gayday Nation - Reviewer Jason Jones

I was doing my usual morning ritual of going to Balans on Old Compton Street and having coffee. It was cold and I was wearing my coat with the fur-trimmed collar and using my stick, which I need to help me walk, when I stopped to talk to one of the men who were working on the roadworks outside. I asked him when he thought everything would be put right because I explained I was going to have my book launch there next week and I couldn't possibly expect my guests to trample over roadworks from their taxis and limousines to get in.
And you know what he said? He doffed his hard-hat and said: 'Very la di da di bloody da!' I thought it was terrific, so much so I'm going to use it for the title of a novel. It'll be about a transvestite private detective called Miranda Maracona and she'll have a beehive hairdo like my good friend Ivana Trump."

This is the first I heard of interior designer-turned-writer Robin Anderson's concept for a possible future novel when I interviewed him to publicise his second book, Red Snapper, two years ago. Fastforward to now and Anderson has taken this kernal of an idea, tweaked it and transformed it into his trademark bonkers tale of excess and sexcess, glamour and grottiness, high-society love and low-rent lust.
Naturally, the plot is typically hallucinogenically ridiculous. Miz Miranda Maracona and Miz Kookie Kombuis - "one so fair, the other so, so dark!" as the cover blurb bills them - are two transvestites who certainly live up to their exotic monikers running a special service in Soho. Now, I know what you're thinking. There's only one type of service on offer in that particular neck of the woods, but you'd be wrong. Well, ish.

Miz Miranda and Miz Kookie are "transvestites with taste… not transvestites of tackiness!" so decide not to go down the overly obvious skin trade route setting up The M K Agency, a "love date agency". And thus kicks off a chicane-run of a caper with more twists and turns than a Lady GaGa hairstyle that takes in deliciously-named characters (Prince Igor Pisskossovich, anyone?) and places (Bejesustan for a holiday, perhaps?), intrigue and, of course, plenty of extreme shagging.

This is Anderson's sixth foray into fiction and, to my mind, is his best to date. The pace is more polished and he seems more in command of the material and the characterisation; there's a (slightly) less hysterically fevered pitch, which actually works in its favour. Also, this outing is the funniest yet - I love the pun "It's against orifice policy" - striking the just-right balance between farce and drama. OK, you've got to be open-minded to enjoy some of the humour, but if the mind ain't open there's no point picking up any book really, is there?

What I love about Robin Anderson's writing is that it is so at odds with the perception he projects as a person. In the flesh - and I imagine he will absolutely loathe this comparison, but too bad - he reminds me of that other flamboyant interior designer/power-socialite Nicky Haslam only with better clobber and less work done on his mush. (Although maybe he has been bionically reconstructed, but it's just less obvious. If so, ask the name of his surgeon.)

Like Haslam, he's a smooth operator every-ready with a gossipy bon mot/acid putdown at a party, he's plummily posh and also, by dint of interior designery, is unusually deft at scene-painting and minutiae-clocking. Also, both have a seriously dirty glint in their eye, which Anderson channels into his gloriously saucy novels as opposed to Haslam's penchant - as detailed in his recent autobiography - for sleeping with Princess Margaret's inamoratos.

Once again, in La Di Da Di Bloody Da! the dirt-channelling is in fine filthy fettle as we're plunged into an heroically hedonistic world that few of us live in but thanks to Anderson we get to visit. A risqué ripping yarn of a romp that might not exactly warm the cockles of your heart, but will heat up the heart of your cock.

All that, and, it almost goes without saying, that the book is dedicated to his mucker, florid inspiration and current Celeb BB occupant Miz Trump, which tells you all you need to know about the world in which this hyper-story is set.

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