Twenty-seven years have passed since Adrian Mole first shared his diary with the world. Now, aged 39¼ and living in the Leicestershire village of Mangold Parva, the trials of adolescence are firmly behind him. Of course, all is not yet entirely perfect. He lives in a converted pigsty next door to his parents. His wife Daisy is in an ad-vanced state of post-metropolitan despair: she hates living in "yokel-land" where "the populace have never heard of the White Cube Gallery or macchiato coffee and think Russell Brand is a type of electric kettle". His little daughter is a psychopath. But Mole is basically happy. He remains committed to Literature, cycling to his day job in a second-hand bookshop and toiling in the evenings on his ambitious new play, Plague!.
Unfortunately, his concentration is increasingly disrupted by his bladder. It turns out that Mole has prostate cancer. I took this news badly: it felt like discovering that Pooh has an inoperable aneurysm, or the Very Hungry Caterpillar is a martyr to his arthritis. Sue Townsend has always had an unflinching sense of humour - the more incongruously awful the situation, the more she can make us laugh. She is not frightened of being funny about sickness (she is herself registered blind, a complication of diabetes). And she's not afraid of being hilarious about cancer. She afflicts poor Moley with a disease that is mortifying in its symptoms, mortifying in its treatment, and mortifying in the fact that 90% of the population mispronounce the name of the organ (and that is without even getting started on where the elusive gland is located, or what it does). Yet Mole remains magnificent in his dignity, and Townsend squeezes tender comedy from every aspect of what the medical profession now likes to call his "cancer journey".
It takes days before Mole can get to see his GP, of course. A fierce receptionist guards the practice. "Started ringing the surgery at 7.59am. Mrs Leech answered immediately and told me I must ring again at 8am." He eventually despairs of an appointment and phones NHS Direct, who tell him that he must see a doctor. At the drop-in centre at the hospital a weary young doctor sends him back to his GP. After he has finally managed to access this mythical being, a superbly lugubrious Pole ("Next time marry an ugly woman. Nobody will take her from you then, I promise"), he has the hospital doctors to contend with. He meets his oncologist to discuss treatment options. Dr Rubik is modern - and sensitive. She does not make choices for her patients. "We decide together, Adrian," she tells him. "I only got a C grade in GCSE biology," he responds, in panic.
Meanwhile well-wishers cannot restrain themselves from sharing their own experiences of the disease. Someone's third husband, Barry, for example, "is still in remission from 'prostrate' cancer 11 years on, and lives a very active life, snorkelling in the Maldives and hot-air ballooning". "My uncle had prostate cancer," another acquaintance offers. Mole asks how he is getting on. "He died five years ago."
As Mole cycles up to the hospital for his radiotherapy, his mother proposes an alternative: why doesn't he try wearing a special crystal in a bag next to his groin? "According to my mother, the crystal will neutralise the antibodies that are attacking my 'prostrate'." "We must explore every avenue, Aidy. Don't close your mind to alternative health. I've got your father on seaweed extracts and it's perked him up no end."
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Embarking on chemotherapy, Mole manages to alienate the NHS wig fitter, causing him to write sadly in his journal: "Diary, why do I feel the need to make conversation with health professionals?" It is all sweetly funny. It is also the gentlest portrayal of the reality of cancer treatment that one could hope to read, profoundly sad but completely undepressing. Adrian's Moleishness is his triumph: he is indefatigably himself, whatever horrors come. It is impossible not to love a character who, exhausted, bald, manhandled and cuckolded, can still ponder over his breakfast cereal: "Ate one Weetabix - or should that be Weetabi?" This is a seriously lovely book.
The Prostrate Years by Sue Townsend
M Joseph £18.99 pp405