Sweet Sorrow

We made our way slowly down the path that led to the stream

Swayin' slightly

Drunk on the sun I suppose

It was a real summer's day

The air hummin' with heat

Whilst the trees beckoned us into their cool green shade

And when we reached the stream

I put a bottle of cider into the water to chill

Both of us knowin' that we'd drink it long before we had chance

(David’s Last Summer, Pulp)

These words form the inspiration for David Nicholls’ new book, Sweet Sorrow. In Keats’ Ode to Autumn, he eulogises the season of abundance, where produce is swollen, plumped, loaded and blessed. In many way the above lyrics are an ode to summer, a season of sundazed possibilities, where days stretch out like contended yawns. Look at those unhurried words: ‘slowly,’ and ‘swayin’: when you’ve got six weeks holiday what’s the rush? And what about the teenage romanticism of the last two lines: instead of putting Moet in an iced bucket, it’s cider in the stream – only the pay off is that the Strongbow won’t be chilled; adolescent thirst hasn’t got the patience for that.

Most share Jarvis Cocker’s sentiment. This is the prevailing view of the summer holidays. It is the season to unwind and relax. For families to get away from the urban sprawl, decamp to the seaside. For teachers to put down their mark book, pick up the prosecco. For children to exchange school desks for ice creams. For people to unbutton tight uniform, adopt loose leisure.

Yes for some the coming of the ice cream van signals Fonz-like happy days; however, for others it’s a harbinger of sadness. Six weeks is a long time if you’re from an unhappy home. Six weeks is an age when mum and dad are arguing. The cost of summer huge when your family can't scratch a living. It can be fucking boring too if you don’t have anyone to do anything with. I remember living in a house share a few years ago where I was the only teacher; my friends from work were busy with children, and I didn’t have the motivation for travel; after completing The Wire box set I was at a loss as to what to do with my time. I missed the interaction and conversation that work brings. Now, my wife is a teacher it’s always a happy time as we kick cans and lark about with one another, but I appreciate how for some it's tedious or- even worse- painful.

A TV box set does not a summer make.

The oxymoronic title Sweet Sorrow is taken from Romeo and Juliet, a play that oscillates from happiness to despair, love to hate, endings to beginnings. Nicholls has chosen it because Romeo and Juliet is what his story is framed around, but also because it captures that formative time in a teenager’s life when one experiences intense joy and sadness. At school your time is not your own; it’s controlled by the state; however, on holiday there’s the opportunity for long bike rides, sprawling meet-ups and extended parties. All of this social time can give rise to first kisses and condoms, but also first heartbreaks and scares. The time to be yourself is fraught with opportunities, challenges.

Sweet Sorrow begins with an ending. School’s out for summer and the students of Merton Grange are pretty happy about it. However one student isn’t so sure. Charlie Lewis isn’t sure how he’s going to fill those days, those endless days. With his friends in full-time work and his parents recently separated, Charlie isn’t going to bask in the sunshine but be burnt by it. The only things he has for company is a shitty part-time job and a dad that won’t get out of bed. The sky is an illusion: it may profess to be blue, the reality though is dark, dark grey. For Charlie and his father the sun is a toff during austerity, having a laugh whilst they experience depression.

With nothing to do Charlie demands his bike take him anywhere, I don't care. Each day he heads further and further, out into the country, up the hills, across the meadows; here, he rests to have a read. Books are a new thing for Charlie, something to pass the time. At school he was of average intelligence, yet his family breakdown means he's destined for re-sit grades. 

The humble bike is a child's passport to the world.

Whilst reading, a girl literally stumbles into his path; she is hurt and needs support. The girl, Fran Francis, is from Chatsborne school; a school that according to Charlie is ‘composed entirely of head boys and girls, eating vegetarian tagine from self-carved bowls on furniture they’d made from reclaimed wood.’ Of course like Romeo and Juliet this is just tribal prejudice; admittedly unlike Romeo and Juliet both rivals aren’t ‘alike in dignity,’ one does cater for working-class students, the other for middle-class; yet the kids aren’t all that different. For one, Fran shares his views on the summer, offering:

This summer’s a bastard isn’t it? Sun comes out, sky’s blue if you’re lucky and suddenly there are all these preconceived ideas of what you should be doing, lying on the beach or jumping off a rope swing into the river or having a picnic with all your mates, sitting on a blanket in a meadow and eating strawberries and laughing in that mad way, like in the adverts.

Like Charlie, she is cynical about the season of joy. She doesn’t feel the breeze blowing down her back, but down her neck. There’s the pressure to do something remarkable with it, with yourself, to show that you haven’t wasted time, but manipulated it for personal gain. Yet instead of being hamstrung by it, she’s determined to use it as motivation: to take the corporate adverts and turn them into artistic life. Up the hill she’s rehearsing for an amateur production of Romeo and Juliet and she wants Charlie to join them. Could a Merton Grange boy (M for Montague- I just noticed that) and Chatsborne girl (C for Capulet) make life imitate art and become star-crossed lovers?

Two houses both unlike in dignity,

In South London where Nicholls lays his scene.

David Nicholls was an actor himself before he went into writing. Although he is self-effacing about this time, the fact remains he was with the National Theatre and performed alongside Judi Dench in Chekhov’s The Seagull. Nevertheless, he was mainly an understudy in his career; all of this waiting in the wings left him unsatisfied. This dissatisfaction led to him leaving the profession and entering writing; firstly for Cold Feet, and then into novels, where he enjoyed huge success with One Day ­­– a novel that also features a character who performs. This knowledge of the industry makes Nicholls excellent at pricking the pretension of actors, but also able to recognise the sense of worth it gives you.

Even though his books sell by the bucketload, Nicholls is an incredibly smart writer. A lesser writer would have had Charlie cast as Romeo alongside Fran’s Juliet. Here though, Charlie is Sampson, promoted later to Benvolio. Nicholls once dreamt of being a stand-up and his love of comedy is evident here, recognising how audiences root more for the underdog than the star. If this were a Nicholas Sparks novel you can bet your bottom dollar the casting decision would be different; as it is Charlie is taught by Fran to act, a reading experience he describes ‘like playing tennis with a competitor who wanted me to win, knocking the ball back courteously to my racket.’

Clever lad.

The thing I love about David Nicholls is he writes mainstream fiction with a literary pen. For instance, the above simile is original and accessible, quite a feat in a book market that's either cliched or impenetrable. Two other similes I love in the book are: ‘I could make out her BCG scar, dimpled like the markings on a Roman coin,’ when describing Fran; and ‘Hands plunged deep in the other’s waistband as if pulling tickets for a raffle,’ when describing the tactile dips of the school disco.

I really loved Sweet Sorrow, although I would advise that it is slower than Nicholls’ other work. Think of it more like a John Hughes movie and less like a One Day plot rollercoaster and you’ll know what to expect. To usher in a summer holiday it was a perfect read, parting from it was well such …

Sweet Sorrow is out now.