Book review: Lingua Franca

MILES PLATTING is the disengaged founder of naming rights company Lingua Franca, which matches corporate sponsors with cash-strapped towns.

After his staff head to Barrow-In- Furness to rename it Birdseye, the legacy of a recent tragedy hanging over them, he wakes alone in a mysterious hospital.

It is where no one is permitted to speak and the nurses only want him to write his story.

While deciphering original identities is an amusing distraction — Lingua Franca is based in Stella Artois, formerly Milton Keynes — the novel’s paper-thin characterisation and jumbled narration struggle to maintain attention.

Lingua Franca is a bundle of interesting concepts: the importance of names and language; class and culture clashes; the true worth of prostituting history for success.

Unfortunately, it’s just not that interesting a story.

Lingua Franca

William Thacker

Legend Press, €11.48.;

ebook, €4.84