Book Review: The Mattress, Wasps vs. Humans

‘Wasps vs. Humans’ is the nom de plume under which Cork-based poet, playwright and musician Carl Anthony Plover has chosen to release his highly unusual debut novel.
In the throes of a midlife crisis, trapped in suburbia, and in the midst of a heavy dose of antibiotics and cough mixture, the narrator remembers back, half dreaming, to a time in his youth when bills, a mortgage, kids and the job didn’t matter. Plover is mixing fact with fiction, as he draws on his own previous adventures in the music industry: a favorite of John Peel and Melody Maker, he once toured with ’80s experimentalists 4,000,000 Telephones.  
Throughout the novel, as the narrator wanders the rooms of his suburban home, he veers from Dylan Thomas-like surrealist reflections to naturalistic, Mike Leigh-style accounts of his everyday life.
Failed musicians will love this… or at least empathise.