King of the Castle, by Martin Plimmer

What does a humorous writer do when his life starts to fall apart? He gets the builders in

I used to have an editorial job on a weekly magazine. Correspondents phoned in pieces on inadequate lines from Moscow. Columnists left their copy for collection at main-line stations, but wouldn't say which one. Once a menacing helicopter-load of army blokes hovered over the building opposite and stared in while I did some checking of a piece on torture in Northern Ireland.

I could take it. It was the steady stream of pieces from freelancers about having the builders in that made me crack. You couldn't stop the bastards. They'd ring and tell you about all the terrible things that the builders had done, the load-bearing walls they had knocked down, the noise, the dust, the singing, the cost and the sudden disappearances. Make a great piece. I'll bring it over tomorrow.

No amount of pleading would stop them. And it didn't matter who the writer was, the piece was always the same. It probably went round all the freelancers like a circular letter. Each would retype it and add his or her name. It was a full-time job just keeping it off the pages.

Martin Plimmer must have hung on to it for a bit. He's had time to turn it into a sizable chunk of his book about a man called Martin who has the builders in. The fictional Martin is a large woolly man, slowly unraveling. He lives in a house that's falling to bits, with a marriage that's feeling the strain, and has a dwindling career as a freelance writer trying to place pieces about (among other things) having the builders in. This way to the Hall of Mirrors.

When not doing the builder piece, and its closely related partner the Ikea piece, Plimmer is a very funny writer. Members of an entertaining cast wander in and out of these pages: the hippy who has decided to retire from the strains of hippydom; Toby the freeloading actor, who can eat a fridge empty and drink a cellar dry; and the "gorgeous ghosts", his wife's unmarried elegant friends. They "look at me from some distracted inner part of themselves, they send a shiver down my spine. Spooky. If I were a dog I'd bark at them". See how beautifully he writes.

A rackety chorus of children and teenagers rampage through the book. He's very good at writing about children – lots of warmth and understanding, no sentimentality. It is all very close to Plimmer's own life. This isn't really a novel but a series of humorous pieces knitted together, covering a year in the Plimmer household. Or perhaps a long note of apology to his wife.

Just when he and his family's finances are in meltdown, the dream job – TV reviewing – comes his way. It's the freelancer's Holy Grail: regular work, good money, no going out in the rain. Woolly Martin just can't knit himself together. He blows it. A few weeks into the work, he takes off to do a job abroad and files his copy long-distance. He sends in reviews for the wrong day and gets the sack.

It's the equivalent of knocking down a load-bearing wall and then disappearing on another job. Is there some builder out there trying to place a piece about his incompetent writer-employer in Builder's Weekly? Make a great piece. Bring it over tomorrow?