The Three Wives of Charlie Mellon by Ian Siragher - REVIEW

There are books you pick up for the story, and there are books you pick up for the company. The Three Wives of Charlie Mellon offers both — but it’s the company you’ll end up treasuring.

Charlie’s voice is so alive, so stubbornly his own, that slipping into his world feels less like reading and more like joining a friend who's one minor catastrophe away from greatness. If the name Nick Hornby or a certain early Bill Bryson comes to mind, you're not wrong — but Ian Siragher's Charlie is very much his own man, bruises, bacon sandwiches, and all.

On the surface, the premise could sound simple: a serial entrepreneur (read: brilliant dreamer and occasional chaos merchant) in a sleepy Suffolk town trying to balance a crumbling kitchen, a jury summons, three entangled marriages (past and present), and the elusive promise of 1,000 right-footed Adidas trainers. But make no mistake — this isn't a plot-driven novel. It’s a story propelled by momentum of a rarer kind: the physics of character, where a man’s good intentions, small misjudgements, and hopes collide in a series of increasingly hilarious and touching chain reactions.

Charlie doesn't just narrate his life; he invites you into it with the kind of confiding humour usually reserved for best friends or brothers-in-arms. One moment he’s explaining, in vivid detail, how a deer and a jury summons conspired to derail his life; the next, he’s waxing philosophical about wu-wei (the Taoist principle of effortless action) while elbow-deep in liquid silicone and missing kitchen parts. Siragher has somehow created a protagonist who can make the shortage of A-Level algebra textbooks or the quirks of the Felixstowe docks feel like matters of Shakespearean weight — and he’s so sincere in his concern that you find yourself caring, deeply, too.

The genius of this novel lies in its lightness of touch. Siragher understands that big truths rarely arrive in grand speeches; they hide in half-finished breakfasts, awkward reunions with ex-wives, and the small lies we tell ourselves about how tomorrow will be different. He manages the rare feat of being funny and wise without ever announcing either. If you're looking for punchlines, look elsewhere. If you're looking for wry observations that bloom into sudden, unexpected depth — you’re exactly where you need to be.

Underneath the wit, The Three Wives of Charlie Mellon hums with a subtler resonance: the tension between freedom and responsibility, between chasing your dreams and holding on to the life you’ve already built. Charlie’s hustles — whether he’s salvaging mismatched trainers or clearing out garages filled with mannequins — aren’t just comic set-pieces. They’re quiet meditations on how we cope with the random, unfair absurdities of life, and whether ‘making your own luck’ is ever truly possible.

It’s hard not to think of PG Wodehouse when reading Siragher’s comedic timing, or Roddy Doyle in the way he captures the everyday heroism of ordinary people. Yet comparisons only get you so far. Siragher has a gift for dialogue and inner monologue that feels startlingly authentic — slightly messy, tangential, full of half-explained references and local colour. In other words, alive. You don't just believe in Charlie Mellon; you believe he's waiting for you down the pub, already one pint in, ready to tell you about the time a fox hunt mistook his driveway for a battlefield.

The rhythm of the novel itself has an almost musical feel — a series of escalating riffs on chaos, responsibility, and hope, each looping back to familiar themes while moving steadily (and hilariously) forward. There’s a strange comfort in seeing how each small decision Charlie makes — some noble, some foolish, some both — spins out consequences he could never have foreseen. Yet the novel never tips into cynicism. Even at his lowest moments, Charlie remains defiantly, almost irrationally, optimistic — a quality that, by the end, feels nothing short of heroic.

Perhaps the greatest triumph of The Three Wives of Charlie Mellon is how quietly it shifts beneath your feet. You think you’re signing up for a comic romp — and you are — but somewhere along the way, you find yourself tangled in real questions about loyalty, compromise, and the stubborn, ridiculous ways we love. It's a book about second chances, and third ones, and about the people who keep showing up even after the joke has worn thin. It’s about living not for the trophies, but for the next decent cup of tea, the next long conversation, the next unexpected burst of laughter.

Which is to say: it’s about life as some of us actually live it.

You might think you’re too busy to read this. You might think you already know what kind of story this is. But somewhere between the missing trainers, the missed opportunities, and the mishandled emotions, something rare and magnetic happens: you stop noticing the page numbers, and start listening — really listening — to what Charlie Mellon has to say.

Not because he demands it.
Because he’s earned it.
And because somewhere, deep down, you suspect he’s stumbled onto a few truths you’d be a fool to miss.