Born Under Punches by
Martyn Waites
hbk out June 03
Published by Simon Schuster
at £17.99
An 'angry young man' sort of book, which oscillates between the miners'
strike of 1984 and 2001. It is sited in Tyneside and adjacent
Northumberland, the focus being a defunct mining town on the coast called
Coldwell, which sounds rather like the real Blyth. The story revolves around
five main characters, Tony, who was a Newcastle United footballer;
Tommy, a violent debt-collector; Mike, a desperate out-of-work miner,
Louise and her brother Stephen Larkin, a very left-wing journalist. In fact, I
feel that the author uses Larkin as a vehicle for his own political leanings,
which is rabidly anti-Thatcher, not surprising given the genesis of the British
police state during that strike.
The writing is excellent, but conforms to the current obligatory formula of
the 'noir genre', as the pundits say - violence, obscene langauge and plenty
of explicit sex, some of it perverted.
What does not conform is the rapid vibration between the two time periods.
The blurb calls it 'moving seamlessly', but I call it damned confusing, as one
often can't tell which decade the action is in, until you dig into the context.
It may be trendy in modern literary circles, but personally, I like a book that
starts at the beginning and goes on to the end. Undoubtedly well-written, it
will no doubt appeal to many readers, but I found it a saddening, confusing
book that I wouldn't read for pleasure, which I thought was what novels
were for. However, the plaudits on the cover claim quite the contrary, so
I guess I'm just too old and should stick to Miss Marples.
(
Bernard Knight
ex Home Office Pathologist and author of the highly acclaimed Crowner John series)
Born Under Punches by
Martyn Waites
