Adrian Mole’s Teenage Years: A 1980s Diary
Summary
The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13 ¾ begins when Adrian is 13 ¾ and ends on his fifteenth birthday. During this time, Adrian experiences first love, navigates his parents’ marital problems, and pursues his ambition to become an intellectual and writer. Pandora, the love of his life, is more intelligent than Adrian, and her family is wealthier. She falls for Adrian after he rebels by wearing red socks to school instead of the required black. Together, they form a committee to continue the disruption. Adrian frequently worries about losing Pandora due to outbreaks of acne.
Adrian’s other problems include being bullied at school, his growing interest in sex, and his parents. His home life becomes chaotic when his parents’ marriage breaks down. After his mother runs off with the next-door neighbor, Mr. Lucas, Adrian’s father, George, is briefly cheered by a relationship with Doreen Slater. However, George sinks back into depression when he loses his job. Doreen, though sometimes annoying, often provides a peaceful refuge for Adrian and the family dog. She also helps Adrian deal with Barry Kent, the school bully who demands protection money.
Another important person in Adrian’s life is Bert Baxter, an elderly man Adrian helps. Bert eventually moves in with Adrian’s new neighbors, the Singhs, before being moved to a nursing home, where he meets Queenie. They later marry and live together. During a vacation in Scotland with his mother and her boyfriend, Adrian befriends an American boy named Hamish Mancini.
Despite these distractions, Adrian is determined to become an intellectual. He writes to Malcolm Muggeridge, a well-known TV intellectual, asking for advice but receives no response. He sends poems to the BBC and receives encouraging, though amused, responses from John Tydeman. Towards the end of the year, Adrian’s mother returns home, and his father finds a job. A semblance of order is restored before Adrian turns fifteen. He can now shave but is still legally a child.
Set in the early 1980s in an unnamed town in the Midlands of England, the novel portrays the effects of rising unemployment and cuts to education and medical services on a working-class family. It also shows the growing desire of English women for freedom from traditional domestic roles, as seen in the actions of Adrian’s mother, Pandora, and Pandora’s mother. The American edition includes an Afterword explaining unfamiliar words and references, presented as a letter exchange between Adrian and Hamish Mancini.