Five Dead Men by
Emer Gillespie
pbk out April 00
(Headline)
at £5.99
Set in the height of a steamingly hot summer in the seedy Islington-Hackney borders, it is not a book to read in winter as the heat, disappointingly, is not portrayed convincingly and clashes with incompatible weather. Karen, with her partner and on-off boyfriend, Rob, sets out to make a film about the destruction of Angel Point, a grim tower block condemned to make way for community housing. Body number one dangles before his certain death on the very first page, taking us right into the action before slowing up to set the scene. Body number two is Ted O’Hagan whose death and his widow’s reaction to it are paralleled with that of Karen’s mother’s accidental death years before and with which she had never come to terms. Karen’s denial of the past is swept away as she tentatively re-forms relationships with her father and cousins, contrasting the pain of long-standing grief and the hope and happiness of a community wedding. Only her cousin, Carol, is not happy with events and with good reason as the final body count shows.
Gillespie’s language, at times, is both beautiful and poignant: ‘Words are discarded like so many pieces of litter and scatter to the winds in the constantly shifting, restlessly moving debris of the day’ (p 45). The book is well thought out and intelligently written with any complaints I might have (such as the intrusive nature of her dog) being minor. So much so, that I will be buying her first book, Virtual Stranger, in the comforting knowledge that it will be as good as Five Dead Men, which, had it had another title, would have offered even more surprises. I highly recommend this book – just wait until the weather improves to appreciate it fully!
