list.co.uk/books
SOCIAL DRAMA ANTHONY CARTWRIGHT How I Killed Margaret Thatcher (Tindal Street Press) ●●●●●
Political statement disguised as kitchen sink drama, Anthony Cartwright’s third novel sees him return to the Black Country region of Cinderheath last seen in Heartlands, 2009’s exploration of the BNP. Except this time the clock has been wound back more than 30 years to the dawn of the Thatcher era, eloquently painting a first-hand picture of the times and their effect on a northern industrial community from the unvarnished but all- observing point of view of nine-year-old Sean. A low-key but impressive novel redolent of a more tender David Peace, it doesn’t trade in shock
Books REVIEWS
EXPERIMENTAL FICTION RICHARD MILWARD Kimberly’s Capital Punishment (Faber) ●●●●●
With two books already under his belt, Richard Milward has got critics in a tizz with an intoxicating style that’s been compared to Irvine Welsh, JD Salinger, Gabriel García Márquez, Skins and the Arctic Monkeys. This latest effort sees the young Middlesbrough author shift effortlessly from new talent to major literary force to be reckoned with.
Kimberly’s Capital Punishment starts with a suicide and the failing relationship of Stevie Wallace – a silver-eyed boy with a stutter – and loveable anti-hero Kimberly Clark, a girl ‘named after a toilet tissue dispenser’. And as their bleakly
value so much as a richly observed sense of place and time, all conveyed in a bold first-person flashback. The hurried finale on Brighton beach on the same day as the bombing in 1984 is heavily reminiscent of both Quadrophenia and Grant Morrison/Paul Grist’s similarly-themed short graphic novel St Swithin’s Day. But Cartwright still articulates the sense of deep alienation that Thatcher’s strident dogma exposed in those who felt excluded by it. (David Pollock) hilarious story unfolds, we encounter a surreal cast of London ‘brokeLads’, along with rats on pills and the concept of being reincarnated as a reptile. Milward contemplates the Big Questions in a bittersweet paean to the UK capital in his own inimitable style and does so with his most impressive series of textual experiments, poetic flashes and lip-smacking imagery to date. His punchy prose is driven by an irresistible energy and masterful flair. (Camilla Pia)
FAMILY SAGA JOE STRETCH The Adult (Jonathan Cape) ●●●●●
Author, musician and creative writing lecturer Joe Stretch’s third novel is a tragi-comic coming-of-age story/family saga narrated with a sardonic sense of humour by a lost lad named Jim Thorne. Growing up in the north of England in the 1990s, Jim is heir to the multi-talented Albrights, the four sisters on his mother’s side of the clan who secured fame and fortune through acting and music. Jim, however, is also the product of an unhappy
marriage and has failed to live up to his early potential as a ping pong champ and whose other pre-adolescent talent, as a trumpet player,
produced only a brief spell of fame as a young adult. Stretch eschews the current critical trend that blames the baby-boomers for everything that’s perceived to have gone wrong for their kids. Instead, he sees his generation X/Y protagonist (Jim was born on the cusp in 1982) as a product of their/his times, at once driven by youthful rebellion and paralysed by creeping disillusionment. It’s a sad book, but it’s also funny and true. (Miles Fielder)
ALSO PUBLISHED TRAVEL BOOKS
COMIC ROGER GIBSON & VINCE DANKS Harker: The Book of Solomon (Titan) ●●●●● TV is a medium that does police procedurals very well and Harker would slot in nicely alongside the current crop of cerebral shows. The most obvious small-screen comparisons could be made here to Sherlock and Whitechapel, as a mutilated body is found on the steps of a church in London. Enter DCI Harker and his sidekick DS Critchley who take an idiosyncratic approach to solving this grisly murder. There’s also a dash of Hellblazer’s John Constantine as hints of the occult start to creep into the case.
It certainly doesn’t break any new ground but it is tightly paced and genuinely intriguing. Vince Danks’ clean black and white art gives Harker the perfect atmosphere and really emphasises the interplay between the two leads, turning Harker and Critchley into real characters rather than just stock ciphers. The resolution is a tad underwhelming but with a bit more polish plus a few more stories where he can really settle into his groove, Roger Gibson really could be onto something rather special. (Henry Northmore)
In Trigger Happy TV, Dom Joly filmed people dressing up as animals and upsetting or confusing the public at large. Whether this has any link whatsoever to his new book is wholly unclear. Scary Monsters and Super Creeps (Simon & Schuster) is not the umpteenth book about Bowie this year, it’s the story of Joly’s search for the world’s most terrifying mythical creature. So, he heads off to northern California to track down Sasquatch, attends a yeti expedition in Bhutan and lurches around the forests of Japan with the vain hope of spotting some kind-of Godzilla- type beast. It’s just as well he doesn’t take himself seriously.
A little more arch is Tom Feiling’s Short Walks from Bogotá (Allen Lane) in which the acclaimed journalist and author of The Candy Machine strolls down paths in Colombia that that were previously far too dangerous to be seen in as he attempts to paint a more positive picture of the country once dubbed a ‘narcostate’. Guy Delisle also walks around some potentially tricky zones for Jerusalem: Chronicles from the Holy City (Jonathan Cape) as he documents the lives of Christians, Jews and Muslims, all of whom consider the city as theirs and theirs alone.
Cathy Birchall tells her moving story in Touching the World (Panther) as she recounts being the first blind woman ever to navigate the globe, alongside companion and co-author Bernard Smith. Inspiring in a rather different way is 100 Places You Will Never Visit (Quercus) as Dan Smith counts down the impossible-to-see nooks and crannies such as Three Mile Island, the Vatican Archives, Fort Knox and the Tora Bora caves in Afghanistan. Some of you might view this as a direct challenge. In which case, good luck. (Brian Donaldson)
16–23 Aug 2012 THE LIST 97