[In the following excerpt, Barnes offers a mixed review of Redhill Rococo.]

Redhill Rococo experiments in a little-known genre: the ‘Condition of Surrey’ novel. The main feature of the style is the barrage of acronyms and initials facing the reader: DHSS, YTS, HMP, C of E, WPC, SDP; even UCCA plays a part and among vegetarians B₁₂ gets an honourable mention. At PTA meetings mothers abbreviate each other blithely, into Mrs H-J or Mrs S; and trendy Christians daub their surroundings—a Ricky Nelson poster comes in for special punishment, a macabre touch—with the graffito ‘GOD RULES OK.’ You get from the novel what you don't expect: Pearl Slattery (Mrs S) strikes a radical blow against the State. Towards the end she turns up for work at Snashfold's Sweet Factory to find locked gates and sleeping machinery. It is suggested that the plant has shut down due to the recession: a nail-file in the butterscotch and a plaster in the Jelly Teddies can't have helped. Anxious about the upkeep of her family, about her son's unpunctuality on his Youth Training Scheme and about her daughter who has eloped with the Bible-punchers, Pearl opts to go out in a blaze of glory—or rather a shop steward takes that option for her. Her arrest for criminal damage to Snashfold's property equips her neighbours with an unfamiliar item of conversation—martyrdom to class struggle.

Mackay excels at a comedy of self-abasement, intermittently deprecating and cruel. But unhappily she has a propensity for overkill. Bad jokes sneak in and the insubstantial narrative indicates weakness. Pearl's lodger attempts to seduce her but in vain, despite a liberal sprinkling of love-potion (purchased from Redhill's obeah man) in her Horlicks. The Slattery children gesture at rebellion or disappoint, and a climax that involves Pearl escaping in a Range Rover seems relatively pointless. At other times Mackay shows herself to be susceptible to patches of purple prose concerning liberation. In this context such an idea, although she milks it for a laugh or two, appears whimsical and out of place.