Jerry Raine - Smalltime
Do Not Press Pbk Original £5.99
Jerry Raine's first novel opens with short pacey chapters in which we are quickly introduced to Chris who lives 'temporarily' in the YMCA, and who works 'temporarily' in an off-license. Chris is mugged on his way to the night safe with the day's takings.
The mugger, Dashy, is unemployed. He spends each day with his friend Kevin in the betting shop, does a fair amount of drinking, and dreams of having enough money to take out a 'greasy-looking' girl called Helen.
Chris didn't see the face of the man who mugged him, but by some elementary calculations and a bit of luck he works out who it was and begins to stalk him. These three male characters carry the plot, and the viewpoint is shared more or less equally between them.
There is a sub-plot involving Chris's tangled love life, which alternates between his ex, Amanda; Liz, who works for a film company in the West End; and Rachel, the nymphette who works on the till in the off-license. He reels backwards and forwards between them, being mugged by love.
Although the novel begins well, it doesn't live up to its promise. The plot is too thin, too linear, and the possibilities of involving the female characters in anything outside of sex is not grasped. Throughout the narrative there is a sense of unease, but no real tension. This is, perhaps, because the characters are not fully realised, and it is, therefore, difficult to empathize with any of them.
Even at the end of the novel, when the bloody pity of it all was laid out before me, I could only shrug my shoulders.
John Baker
