The Novel Cure: Literary prescriptions for being over-controlling

Ailment: Being over-controlling

Cure: Us by David Nicholls

Micromanaging from a distance is a nasty habit easily acquired, especially if you fancy yourself a bit of an expert. Whether it's cooking, driving a car or parenting, you find it almost impossible to let others do it their way. If this describes you, read Us and let Douglas – an over-controller par excellence – show you just how badly things can go.

Douglas is an earnest, thorough, and rather lacklustre man of science, married to Connie, a bohemian, spontaneous woman of the arts. Told in flashbacks, the story of this marriage of opposites begins with Connie waking Douglas up in the night to tell him that she wants a divorce.

Ahead of them lies what might be their last family holiday – a grand tour of Europe with their teenage son Albee before he goes off to university. Determined to go anyway – for Douglas, with typical precision, has planned the trip down to the last half hour – they set off with, on Douglas's part at least, touching optimism.

But when Albee meets a madcap Australian accordionist in Amsterdam who suggests they all go to sample the local weed, things go from bad to worse. Suddenly everything Douglas does is reminiscent of the notorious "Lego incident", when, exasperated by his son's haphazard approach to Lego, Douglas glued all the pieces together into permanent, joyless toys.

It's not that Connie is a perfect parent; and it's not that Douglas isn't a loving father. But his insistence on the superiority of his own way is so clearly mistaken– and so obviously backfires – that it makes sobering reading for anyone similarly predisposed.

Join Douglas on his increasingly desperate (and frequently hilarious) mission to salvage what he can of both relationships – and begin to lose control of himself. It may be too late to unstick the Lego, but perhaps you, too, will find a way to loosen your grip a little on the people you love.

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