His Bloody Project

Last week Paul Beatty’s The Sellout won the Man Booker Prize. A satire on America’ racial failings, the book earned praise for its wit, daring and cunning. The public’s favourite, however, was another novel, His Bloody Project, a work that had outsold its rivals five times over in the run up to the ceremony. Its success is remarkable: borne out of independent publishing house, Contraband, the book had only sold 500 copies prior to its nomination. Much like the Mercury Prize in music, the Booker offers small publishing houses an opportunity to break into the big league; so Contraband distributed the work to as many reviewers as possible, hoping that it could gain some attention. Fortunately it did, and since then it’s gone on to be the underground hit of the year.

My relationship with The Booker Prize is mixed to say the least. I’ve loved some (Line of Beauty and Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha), admired others (Life of Pi) and given up on many (A Brief History of Seven Killings, Wolf Hall, The Sea). Often Booker winners can feel very worthy without being particularly enjoyable. This calls to mind the recent documentary on Sue Townsend where her publicist argued that Sue was never garlanded with awards because she was entertaining – humour is seen as trite by award bodies. His Bloody Project is not a comedy, but it has been met with similar disapproval – the reason? It's been branded a ‘crime novel.’ A crime novel in literary circles means a book that other people enjoy but is of no artistic merit. Concerned that people would see the genre and not the tale, the author shot back, defining it as, “a novel that features a crime.” This isn’t a whodunit book – we know it was the seventeen-year-old Ronald Macare – instead it’s a whydidhedoit – or rather – didheknowhewasdoingit. 

In reading this, I felt like another of Henry's victims.

It isn’t just a book about murder; it’s a novel about the nature of truth, the question of justice, the impact of one’s environment – it’s the smartest page-turner you’ll read all year.

Macrae Burnet is a fiendishly clever writer. He imbues in his story the appearance of reality by alleging that the story is true, that he uncovered it whilst researching his grandfather. Typically, the preface of a book is an exercise in earnestness where the writer distils how their book came to be. In Macrae Burnet’s hands, the introduction is where the fiction begins. In purporting to be factual, the author is both respecting and satirising the zeitgeist’s thirst for true crime- he is having his cake and eating it, saying: Here’s a postmodern book for The Booker Prize crowd. Here’s a non-fiction account for the Making A Murderer crowd. From the start then, he is pulling the wool over our eyes, making us see lies as truth – a thematic concern that runs throughout His Bloody Project.

After ‘finding out’ that his ancestor was a triple murderer, Macrae Burnet sets about finding documents that relate to the case. His novel is a crime file where he displays the witness statements, the criminal’s version of events, psychiatrist's report and newspaper cutting of the trial. All of these ‘documents’ (I promise I’ll stop the inverted speech marks soon; I think you’re getting the idea of the fiction masquerading as fact) are presented in such a cunning way that we’re kept guessing until the end – even beyond the end – as to the true motives of the crime.

The writer and his book.

The superb plotting of the book is illustrated firstly in the opening to the ‘report’ (sorry!). We hear statements and testimonials from the neighbour, teacher, priest and victim’s cousin. Already a tricksy portrait of the murderer is drawn. Roderick is described as ‘gentle,’ ‘queer’ and ‘wicked’ from teacher, neighbour and priest respectively. How can one boy elicit such different responses from a tiny Highland community? Another issue that isn’t deliberately addressed in the statements is what exactly Roderick has done and to whom. The first witnesses reveal the victim is neighbour Lachlan Mackenzie, yet it is only when we get to Lachlan’s cousin’s testimony that we’re told about ‘murders.’ Who else has Roderick killed? It’s not until much later on in the book we find out.

 After the witness statements we’re told that Roderick wrote an account of the events whilst in prison. For me, this section of the novel is the writer's crowning glory. Within it, Roderick recounts 19^th century life in the Highland crofting community. Times were hard during this period, close to impossible. With the land a long way from arable, people had to work bloody hard to get any kind of yield. A long way from the city the community was largely self-sufficient. They worked their plot hard but helped others in need. With little money coming in it was a struggle to meet the rents. Hiding behind a big house, the factor that owned the land would enlist a constable, a community official, that would ensure debts were paid, regulations met. When the respected constable grows tired of being caught between the factor’s whims and the tenants' need, the position becomes available. Lachlan, the disreputable neighbour, seizes control and quickly uses bureaucracy to flagellate Roderick's family. Gagged and bound by red tape, Roderick and his family are soon rendered voiceless.

A Highland family being evicted for not paying their rent.

This is why the book is more than a crime novel: it evokes Orwell’s Animal Farm where the manipulator seizes control; Kafka’s The Trial with people caught in officialdom; and finally Dickens’ Great Expectations revealing the laws slippery nature. Given the turmoil of Roderick’s life, it is easy to forget that he has killed and killed again. Again, this is Macrae Burnet’s success as a writer, he gives the telling of the tale over to Roderick, meaning for the first half of the book we hear a one-sided account the events. By the trial scene, you’ll question everything you thought you knew about Roderick Macrae.

Ultimately, this a novel that will appeal to true-crime, crime and literary fans. I raced to finish it in a weekend. Usually with Booker novels I hide behind the sofa until my girlfriend has promised me they've gone away. So the jury may have declared Macrae Burnet ‘Not Guilty’ of writing a Booker winner, but I’m appealing to you to give this book a second chance.

It would be criminal to do otherwise.

His Bloody Project is out now.

Black Mirror

Despite owning every Apple product possible, I’m a skeptic when it comes to technology. For a long time I avoided owning a smartphone, believing that I already used the internet enough, worrying that even easier access would make my online life takeover my real one. In the end I caved in. There’s a lot about my phone I appreciate: the ease by which I can download podcasts, read articles, listen to music and troll Jamie Redknapp. However, there is a darker side to technology too. I know that a quick check of my Facebook can lead me down the rabbit hole of superfluous information: before I know it time has moved on and I’ve lost an hour to Wikipedia. 

To counter this, when I get home from work, I put my phone away in my bedroom to avoid looking at it; this ensures I actually concentrate on the programme I’m watching, the person I’m talking to, the book I’m reading. On average I would say that I’m more considerate than most people when it comes to technology: I use it, but try not to let it use me. For all of that, I appreciate that I would focus better and achieve more if I had more control of it.

Further, as a teacher I worry about the effects of technology. Today’s children were raised on mobile phones, suckling at Wi-Fi’s teat from a young age. Withdrawing it from them can leave them feeling orphaned and bereft. This isn’t an exaggeration: I’ve confiscated phones. I’ve taken the puppy away from the dam; I know what impact it has. Given the choice most children would surrender their parents to the Stasi before they would give up their phone. Who can blame them though? People my age find it hard to cope without a mobile; imagine what it’s like for a generation whose pockets came fitted with one.

Visual metaphor alert.

Day by day we’re becoming more reliant on technology, but at what cost? This is the question that Charlie Brooker wrestles with in his series Black Mirror, a Channel 4 production that's recently moved to Netflix.

Brooker began life as a video games journalist. Much of his 20’s were spent slack-jawed and dope-eyed in front of his console. Loving his job but aware that 30- the age of respectability- was coming, he decided to clean up his act and take control of his writing. The first of his dark materials was the brilliantly corrosive, TV Go Home, a fake listings magazine in the guise of Radio Times. Here, he invented ridiculous television programmes – think Alan Partridge’s pitches, only more fatalistic – to satirically talk TV away from suicidally stupid programming. The Guardian liked what they heard and commissioned him to write TV reviews for them. These hatchet jobs were so violent they rendered the victims unrecognisable – they were also hilarious. From there, he has co-written the brilliant Nathan Barley, a harbinger of hipster culture, and authored the character of Philomena Cunk, this decade’s great comedy character. It is Black Mirror though that has made Brooker into a star: one episode has been ‘optioned’ by Robert Downey Jr.; and several feature Hollywood stars - John Hamm and Domhnall Gleeson being just two.

The idea for Nathan Barley started here.

Following a disagreement over how the show would be financed, the series is now in the hands of Netflix. Even though the producer has changed, the voice hasn’t. The mini-dystopias are still as harrowing, horrific and haunting as ever – one left my girlfriend running for the safety of the bathroom. (“I’ll brush my teeth and I’ll come out when it’s over,” she said.) I should say that I’ve only seen the first three and will endeavour to catch up on the others when I’m not talking to banks and solicitors (In exciting news, we’re buying a house). 

Note: given this blog is called 'Reasons to be Cheerful' shouldn’t I be writing about the happiness of owning bricks and mortar with the woman I love? Is it right that this week I’ve chosen instead to focus on a sci-fi miniseries? Thirty years she’s signed up to live with me, the least I could do is write about how happy it makes me. Will this bit in italics satisfy her? Is a footnote enough to sate her?

The first episode in the new series is Nosedive, and is my favourite so far. In a world where we rate everything (restaurants, hotels, heritage sites and teachers – ratemyteachers.com), then it stands to reason that it won’t be long before we score interactions. This is what Lacie has to contend with. She is a social aspirant, wanting to lift the rope on her 4.3 rating to enter the VIP world of 4.5. In this society your approval rating is one’s social currency; it can get you an upgrade on a car, preferential treatment on a flight, a place in an exclusive apartment. But how do you climb? Well, you paint on a smile, practice a ‘sincere’ laugh, then go out into the world, aware that every conversation will be appraised and judged. If you have a pleasant interaction, expect the recipient to give you a 5.0 rating. If you cut someone up, don’t be surprised when their phone zaps you with 1.0 rating. Lacie knows that to join the exclusive members club she’s going to need help. Fortunately, her nubile friend, Naomie, is getting married and wants Lacie to be her maid of honour. With everyone attending the wedding on a high score, Lacie knows their patronage might be the difference between a life under the clouds, and a place in the sun.

Watching Lacie’s nosedive into desperation shows how the datafication of life is a worrying trend. Shouldn’t our kindness towards people come from empathy, the will to foster community, and not from an infantile need to be rewarded? I recently found out Uber has passengers rate drivers, and drivers rate passengers, begging the question: has this dark world arrived already?

I reckon I would be on a 2.5 rating. I'm not great at small talk, but do a great medium talk given half a chance.

Episode 2 is Playtest, one that benefits from Brooker’s knowledge of video games. The main character is Cooper, a strong, young American, who has arrived in England following a round-the-world trip. Seemingly, he is of white privilege – who else could afford such an adventure? However, over the course of the narrative you realise that the trip was one of flee, not glee. Desperate for money, he accepts a job as a video games trialist for a revolutionary computer games company.

In this building, Cooper is told they have invented a game that can tap into people’s personal horror stories. The technology is so neuro-sensitive that it can uncover your greatest fears, having you then play them out on screen. The manufacturer reasons that having people live out their fears is healthy: to come out the other side safe and no longer afraid makes a person feel stronger for having survived. Cooper, a gamer, is intrigued; and agrees in the name of catharsis to have his neurosis burrowed into.

I won’t tell you what happens; I’ll just say that the book Cooper is reading, Poe’s The Raven, is significant. Note: this is the one that had The Girl running for the door.

Kurt Russell and Goldie Hawn's son, Wyatt Russell, is the lead in episode 2.

The episode I watched last night was the pulsating Shut up and Dance. The beauty of The Black Mirror series is they stand alone; each one therefore contains a different narrative and mood. Whilst Nosedive hypnotised and Playtest bled, Shut up beats with a driving energy. 

Kenny is a genial fast food worker, polite to adults and children alike. Colleagues though dislike him; they perceive a strangeness in him, something we the viewers initially miss. At home Kenny is guarded, even padlocking his door to deter his sister from invading. Privacy is important to Kenny, which is why he’s devastated when it’s breached by online hackers, especially since he’s been caught with his trousers down. The hackers tell him that they will release the footage of him masturbating unless he carries out set missions on time. The premise then is Run Lola Run where he has to fulfil a task before the clock runs out. In the end your sympathies will be put through the shredder as you question the price of justice.

That's Jerome Flynn in the background. Robson Green must have wondered where it all went wrong.

Black Mirror is a vital piece of programming. It is set in the future but says so much about our present. I urge you to look into it – just don’t be surprised if you don’t like what’s reflected back.

Black Mirror is available on Netflix.

The Red Shed

I first discovered politics whilst sitting in an A Level Economics class with my two friends, Iain and Anthony. The qualification was my political awakening as each week we were told to buy a broadsheet and share what we'd learnt the following week. Up until that point, politics didn’t mean much to me. I knew my parents voted Blair in ’97, along with the rest of the nation, but didn’t know why my dad had stopped voting Conservative, nor why my mum was so pleased that a smile had come to office – I guess I just wasn’t interested. 

Studying Economics changed me. 

We learnt about the two different economic ideologies – Classical and Keynesian – and in nearly every debate I came down on the side of John Maynard Keynes. Classical economists believed that the sheriff should leave town and let big business slug it out in the market saloon. Keynes argued that this wild-west approach to economics was all well and good, but who would attend to the broken infrastructure and citizens that resulted from this free-for-all. Keynes wasn’t a socialist by any means – he promoted the market – but he appreciated that the State had an important role to play in society.

At university my friend, Al, would sit at the kitchen table with a can of diet coke, some roll-up baccy and a copy of The Guardian. The first thing I noticed about him was that he started at the front of the paper. Everyone I knew up until this point had started at the back, treating the text like a Manga comic. For me, the news was like eating my greens: I only consumed it because I was told that it was good for me. But Al devoured these greens in the same way I shovelled in the sport. It was there that I started picking up the paper, finding an affinity with the way it approached news stories. My family had always read the Daily Express  - still do, even though they both support immigration and have moved on from Princess Diana’s death; I guess it’s just become a habit for them. In reading The Guardian I was touched by the humanity of the reporting: how it called business to account and promoted the underdog. Even though the paper sometimes feels it’s beating you over the head with agenda, it remains a left-wing voice in a right-wing world; a noble whisper amongst the screams.

Along with Al the music I listened to informed my politics. Listening to The Smiths, Pulp and Arctic Monkeys turned me on to reading working-class writers. Reading Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner; watching Taste of Honey; listening to John Cooper Clarke made me realise that so many people were trapped in the system; and trapped, not by the content of their character, but by the cut of their class. Realising that people weren’t where they were through ability was a political awakening. From there I would go on to become a state school teacher, join a trade union, strike over pay and conditions, and read The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists ­­– the socialist bible.

From The Ragged.

I’m of the left then. I will always be on the left. I don’t care how many people peddle the lie that the older you get the more right-wing you become, it won’t happen to me. I’m happy to have a system of high taxation and public spending. When I get my payslip at the moment I look at those National Insurance contributions and think, ‘my work in the classroom has helped build a hospital.’ (I’m very egotistical). If I’m honest, I barely look at the number in the bottom right hand corner; I think it’s a little unseemly to reflect on your own personal wealth when you’ve got a society to save. I do, however, appreciate that should I ever own a home - or a child - that I mightn’t welcome taxation with the same open arms, perhaps instead a begrudging shrug; the kind you reserve for a christening invite, where you go to please others and not yourself. So, I mightn’t always love being taxed, but I love what it does.

This week I went to see The Red Shed with my old comedy mate, Andy. The play is performed by comedian Mark Thomas, a man that you might not know from his 90’s Channel 4 show The Mark Thomas Comedy Product. I only heard Mark Thomas for the first time last year in his spellbinding show, Bravo Figaro!; a beautiful piece about his working-class father’s love of opera. I was touched by Thomas’ tale of how his dad, a common man, had fallen for the most esoteric of art forms. In it, Thomas is a natural raconteur, funny and congenial; but even his family story has a political edge: hearing about how dress code and prices sought to exclude his dad from attending the thing he loved makes the thing bubble with some anger.

The Shed in Wakefield.

The Red Shed is a more political piece than Bravo but no less personal. The Red Shed is a Labour club in Wakefield that Thomas has attended since he was a student in Yorkshire. During The Miners Strike Thomas and friends collected for the families by putting on plays and performances in the Wakefield club. He was so immersed in the struggle that he was awarded by the National Union of Miners one of two honorary badges to mark his support for the pitmen – his friend Pete was meant to get the other one but a young NUM lad mistook the Sandinista male for a female Tory (this acts as a running joke throughout the play) . The Shed is celebrating its 50^th birthday this year and to mark the occasion Thomas has decided to write a play. He wants to write about the exact moment he knew he was a Socialist.

The year is 1985, the pitmen have been starved back to work after a year of being on strike. Throughout this time, miners depended upon charitable donations from their community- since Thatcher’s government had denied them social security payments. It was supposed to be a dispute that broke the government, instead it broke the will of workers and their families. Returning to work without getting the reversal on pit closures was a failure: the men felt it, their wives felt it and the community did too. In a dignified show of strength, the men walked through the streets, banners aloft, keeping the red flags flying high; the community came out to clap, to cheer in solidarity. Thomas was one such person. He remembers something even more poignant though: schoolchildren singing. Singing the union anthem, Solidarity Forever (‘Solidarity Forever. Solidarity Forever. For the union makes us strong.'). A student Mark Thomas cries. He knows that their fathers' loss is theirs. If the pit closes, then their history shuts too. These towns were built on flesh and bones industry, now they're being closed on cold hard commerce. Thomas wants to tell this story but in an era of post-truth he can’t be sure it’s true. He has embellished so many stories as a comedian that he’s worried he might have fabricated this one too. In an age of lies he reasons even the façade of theatre must tell truths; his mission is to find that village, that school, those children to find out whether it happened or not.

His journey begins in the Red Shed’s meeting room. Since The Miners Strike, the Shed has gone on to support the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, gay rights and workers rights. In regards to workers rights, The Red Shed was instrumental in unionising local food workers, and helping Wetherspoons staff picket against the EDL holding meetings in their pub. Over its 50 years the Conservative Club opposite has closed down, yet The Red Shed remains (if only this were a microcosm for the national political landscape) . During the meeting, Mark proposes his plans for his theatre show about The Red Shed and the children of the mining village. The committee members are played by the live audience, whom Mark has pre-selected and given face-masks to, to replicate the real-life characters. The parts in the meeting room are redolent of The Vicar of Dibley with petty squabbles about calendars segueing into big talk about issues. In one funny moment, Thomas is forced to rebook Shadow Chancellor, John McDonnell, because it clashes with the bingo.

Audience members in character.

After the meeting, he enlists a few of the members to help him find the pit village that accommodated the school that housed the children. Given there were hundreds of pit villages and Mark can’t remember which one, this is an arduous task. In his odyssey to reclaim the past, Thomas ruminates on the state of a nation. What were once pit yards are now McDonalds. Emblems of comradeship have been tarmacked over by corporate monoliths. With their grandfathers past erased is it any wonder grandchildren vote Tory? 

Over the course of the journey, Thomas wonders whether he will ever find the children that stirred his soul: in one choice moment, he even tells the audience members on stage,

 ‘It occurs to me  my memory may be wrong … and I wonder momentarily if I could lie and pretend to find the school… if you think I should lie and make the story better raise your hand.’

The fact that the audience votes for the lie over the truth might be why we’ve got Brexit. People would rather hear a narrative that appeals to their prejudice than facts that serve them. With this question in the middle of the play, we’re left wondering how true Thomas’ story is. What is fundamentally true though is that it is beautiful, and as Keats once said, ‘Beauty is truth,’ so I guess in a world that promotes lies sometimes that's all we can ask for.

The Red Shed is on tour now.

The Secret Life of Sue Townsend (Aged 68 and 3/4)

I am an intellectual, but at the same time I am not very clever.

(Adrian Mole)

As a teenager I considered myself an intellectual. For a start I was one of nine children in the school that regularly did their homework. I was one of four boys that read outside of class. And on Sunday evenings I was one of one that would sit down to watch a TV literary adaptation with their mum. Yet for all of that I was not clever. When I used to give essays in I would include words like ‘exacerbate’ despite not knowing what it meant: it was enough that I had heard of it, to hell with the context or definition. Like the career of Lady Gaga, all my work was ostentatiously overwrought, a look-at-me appeal for attention, a cry for artistic recognition' I was all thesaurus and no substance. I still worry that I write like this today.

I wrote like she dressed.

Preferring to spend nights in reading Cider with Rosie as opposed to being out drinking it in the park helped cultivate my intellectual persona. Why freeze your balls off drinking cheap apples when you could be inside imbibing sweet, sweet words? Better to fill your head with stories than flood your basin with booze, surely? I would look at the lads getting off with girls and think their’s was a hollow victory. They hadn’t had to work for it. Their mating ritual a caveman smash and grab. I bet they had asked the girl out in dull, leaden prose. I don’t imagine there was a Shakespearean simile in sight. I, on the other hand, believed in courtly love; in chivalry; in gallantry, in being exceedingly polite until the right moment arose to fire Cupid’s poetry their way.

Is it any wonder I loved Adrian Mole at this age?

Adrian Mole is the comic creation of Sue Townsend. He is the reason why I fell in love with reading. Oblivious to music through my teens, comedy was the North Star that guided me through these years. It was a revelation reading a book about someone my age that shared the same concerns I did: Would I ever fall in love? Was my penis large or just above average? Would my school essays ever be published? I laughed at the pomposity of Adrian; his naïve belief that he was in somehow special, then recoiled thinking, “oh, this is a bit like me.” But that was the thing: he was a bit like me, but more monstrous than me. Adrian made teenage outsiders feel less bad about our romantic pretensions because we could never be as bad as that. We could continue to write our terrible poetry because it would never be as woeful as, Pandora I adore ya/ I implore ye/ Don’t ignore me.

Adrian.

The reason I write about Adrian Mole after all these years is because last night Sue Townsend was the subject of a BBC2 documentary. Sadly, Townsend died two years ago following many battles with illness; however, she left a life story that is remarkable. Born on a Council Estate she left school aged just 14. She quickly met a sheet metal worker and married. Unable to hold down a job, she flitted between occupations. Whilst working in a clothes shop she was sacked for reading Oscar Wilde in the fitting room. Her husband thought education belonged in the classroom and disapproved of her intellectual pursuits – she was forced to hide her writing under the cushion to curb his opprobrium. By the time she was 23 she was a single mother with three children. Despite this responsibility, she continued to read and write with a voracity that would put her creation to shame. On meeting her second husband she found a person that would give her the confidence to join a writer’s group, which gave her the drive to become published.   

Once Adrian was published her writing career burgeoned. In fact, Adrian was so popular that it was the best-selling British book of the 1980’s; the follow-ups enjoying huge success too. In watching the documentary though I realised there was more to Townsend than her zitty hero: she was also a playwright who wrote vital pieces on immigrants and women’s issues. She wasn’t afraid to upset the status quo, penning The Queen and I, a scabrous imagining of what life would be like for the Royals if Britain adopted a republic. Despite making millions, she stayed in Leicestershire and remained loyal to her Socialist values. She was wonderful, brilliant and funny.

Townsend.

It seems fitting that this pseudo-intellectual blog should be concluded by Adrian Mole, another pseud like me.

• ·      I'm not sure how I will vote. Sometimes I think Mrs Thatcher is a nice kind sort of woman. Then the next day I see her on television and she frightens me rigid. She has got eyes like a psychotic killer, but a voice like a gentle person. It is a bit confusing.
• ·      [Good Friday] Poor Jesus, it must have been dead awful for him. I wouldn't have the guts to do it myself.
• ·      My father was reading Playboy under cover of the candlelight and I was reading Hard Times by my key-ring torch. 
• ·      My skin is dead good. I think it must be a combination of lucozade and being in love.

The Secret Life of Sue Townsend (Aged 68 and ¾) is available on iPlayer now.