Over 50,000 copies of Where Did It All Go Right? are currently sitting in homes around the country, something that nobody really expected, not least the book's self-effacing author. But whatever it was that struck enough of a chord in Andrew's short-trousered memoirs to ensnare everyone from Time Out to Hello magazine, it's not nearly as much in evidence within Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now. In fact, you're advised to ditch any expectations you might have about part two of The Collins' story, especially anything to do with diary entries, exhaustive footnotes and chatter about favourite television programmes and bands.
That none of these turn up in the opening couple of chapters, and are then clearly not going to show up at all, will almost certainly be the cue for disappointment on the part of a particular readership. So best forget everything you liked about WDIAGR?, and tackle its successor with as much of an open mind as a front cover quote that brackets the author with Nick Hornby and Tony Parsons and a photo of Andrew with big hair will allow.
TV Cream was eagerly anticipating all your benchmark mithering and melodrama that the book's tagline - "My Difficult Student 80s" - implied: wistful geographical and emotional upheavals, spur-of-the-moment obsessions, and witch hunts for whoever stole the cheese from the communal fridge. And indeed, something approaching all of this does turn up, but not until about a quarter of the way through the book, and only after you've negotiated the somewhat grisly business of Andrew symbolically dispensing all shreds of prurience by giving the reader chapter and verse about his sex life.
"I discover through the miracle of touch that Sally is not wearing a bra..." "...'Can I take my clothes off?' Now there's a question..." "...Catherine is, frankly, astride me..." Yikes! Nobody at TVC was expecting this, and for those keen to hear more of Andrew dropping names of 80s quiz show hosts rather than his trousers, it's all rather off-putting. Nothing is spared in the way of lustful liaisons, and pretty soon you're left with an image of Andrew as a woman-crazed Benny Hill-ite caricature running about bedding girls at the first opportunity. And who promptly gets VD for his troubles.
Curious parties browsing the book having chuckled through WDIAGR? will probably abandon all hope at this point, as may the uber-fan desperate for reassuring Collins verbalese about soft drinks and red and black inks. But stick with it, and you'll get to the chapter called 'Eye Drops', all about Andrew's first day at the Chelsea School of Art. And here things take a decisive turn away from personal follies to more universal foibles: namely, that familiar yet devilishly tricky jumble of feelings that accompanies your first step away from home and into higher education. Andrew achieves something here that you rarely see convincingly done by any writer, which is to re-create a pivotal moment in your life with a poignancy that never tips over into cloying sentimentality. No room for painful metaphors and treacly epithets here; just moments of panic on Wandsworth Bridge, clumsy greetings with adjacent room mates, and struggles to work out how to catch a London bus.
From this point those transient, shamelessly superficial relationships fade and other concerns come to the fore. You'll find the depictions of excess still there, but mostly because he's behaving in the way you're expected to behave as a fresher. You either feel comfortable with that or you don't. It's a question of taste, like everything else when you're a student.
It finally turns out the reason HKIMN is very different to its forerunner is because its subject is a very different person - and not a particularly likeable one, certainly in his lecherous first year incarnation. But by the time all of this falls into place you're through the tricky stuff and into the gold dust, as Andrew moves on through his student years and becomes, well, a far more agreeable individual. Best of all, the anecdotage returns apace. There are great episodes involving the developing relationship with his new best mate, a bloke called Rob Mills, with whom he tries to form a kind of informal "double act" socialising and cracking gags and generally hanging about, going so far as to re-name himself Andrew Boone so they can be referred to as, yes, Mills and Boone. Amidst the carousing - "We're drunk as anything!" - there are hapless dabblings in student politics, shit poetry, and reproduced scribbles from a notepad he kept fastened to his room door. There's also - gasp - a long-term relationship, in the shape of an absolutely archetypal "intense" female from Jersey who, in wonderfully classic fashion, makes Andrew's life hell but in the process helps him become a better person. Phew.
The best section of the book is the last third, when Andrew and Rob move into a shared rented flat. Cue a host of spot-on evocations of squalor and stoicism (dusty implements in the kitchen sideboard, collapsing ceilings, shifty landlords, sceptical parents) and a real sense of how our hero is growing and maturing through his experiences. It's all wrapped up with a handful of perceptive conclusions about making that transition out of student life into the real world, a trip back home for a big Collins clan reunion, and a phone call from the NME.
There probably won't be that many copies of Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now joining its brother on the nation's bookshelves, but TVC's overall verdict, for what it's worth, is a resounding thumbs-up. Initially frustrating but ultimately rewarding, you'll get the most out of it by opening its covers without too many presumptions. Which in a way kind of buggers up the point of this whole review, but what can you do - except buy this book ASAP.