This Is Not About Me

ISBN: 978-1847080615
Published by Granta
UK Publication Date 1.9.2008  (Pre-released at the Edinburgh Book Festival 23.08.2008)

It’s been too long since the release of Clara.  (6 years!)  So, when news filtered through that Janice Galloway was releasing something new at the EBF, it was a foregone conclusion that I would be there, would purchase it and that everything could go hang until I had read it.  Thus the Galloway event became my last event.  Nothing could possibly follow it. 

Janice Galloway

How right I was. The wow factor started the moment Galloway entered the auditorium.  Dolled up to the nines in 1950’s garb – lino-piercing stilletos, fishnet tights,  a loud floral confection of a frock, black lace gloves (removed for the reading), single-string pearl necklace, long flowing tresses and immaculate makeup- she had come dressed in homage to Cora, her elder sister.  Cora, the woman-hating, man-loving bully and the beast, who declares “there is no excuse for an ugly woman” in this the first volume of her memoirs.  The child, Janice, has an inferiority complex, inheriting her looks from her father.  However, Cora’s lessons in dolling oneself up, have taken – Galloway, in working class parlance, had scrubbed up well!

The entrance grabbed the audience’s attention and the 30-minute reading that followed held it spellbound as a door opened on Galloway’s unpromising childhood in Saltcoats, Ayrshire.  Living alone with her mother, who had left her husband preferring the loneliness of life without him to the loneliness of life with him.  Sharing a small cubby-hole of a room with her mother, until Cora returned, abandoning her husband and son.  The stuff of deprivation and rural poverty but told with humour that evidences Galloway’s refusal to slip into the mentality of victimhood.

The villain of the piece, Cora (it’s no accident that the memoir is published after her death) doesn’t “do domestic”.  The mother does.  Fetching and carrying and being put on by her eldest daughter and accepting servitude and abuse that she wouldn’t accept from her husband.  On the dustjacket the child, Janice, sits between a caterer (her mother) and a warrior (her sister), observing, deciding on which side of the fence she will land.

The volume was originally planned to conclude at the end of her teenage years.  Yet, using photographs and anecdotes from people known to her, Galloway found herself on page 53 at the age of four.  I find this amazing, considering I have no memories prior to the age of 4 (1st memory being the assassination of JFK).  “Is it memory?  Is it fiction” was one question from the audience.   Galloway said she honestly didn’t know.  Most of the text is prompted by photographs.  Galloway spoke on a photograph taken at the age of 3.  She is sitting on a bike, a stuffed dove on her shoulders, a backdrop of Austria behind her.  The setup indicative of how her mother wanted to make things appear as though they were better off.  What is interesting is that beyond the photograph on the dustjacket, there are no others included in the book.  It’s as though the reader is being asked to choose between the fiction and the fact.

In the best traditions of literary fiction, there is clearly a theme running throughout.  The confusion, terror and absurdity of not knowing during childhood.  The child, Janice, is an observer.  Her narrative voice limited by inexperience, recording the events but not able to put flesh to the motivations of the adults in her life.  This must have called for strong discipline by the adult Galloway, who with the benefit of experience and hindsight must have been sorely tested to impute motive and justification to the characters and to insert her own emotional responses to the events.  The fact that she has taken pains to expunge her adult thoughts proves that the book really isn’t about her but is a documentary of a world without men in a time when men were the breadwinners.

It’s extraordinary. Richard Holloway, who chaired the event, started by listing the awards Galloway has already won for her fiction. Introducing this book, he said: “I’ll eat my mitre, if this book doesn’t sweep up more prizes”.  I sincerely hope it sweeps up everything for which it is eligible and I wish fervently that Galloway doesn’t keep me waiting another 6 years for volume 2.

Further reviews at:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2008/08/30/bogall130.xml

I’m feeling a little bit spoilt here in Lanarkshire – 40 miles from the Edinburgh Book Festival (August) , 20 miles from Glasgow’s AyeWrite festival (February) and now only 10 miles from North Lanarkshire Libraries Words Festival (October). It’s wonderful – I suppose it goes some way towards making up for the weather!

Anyway, last Monday night saw the 3rd anniversary of the Motherwell Book Group coincide with a visit from Janice Galloway as part of the Words 2007 festival.  Free entry, I hasten to add.  The library was packed with an audience of about 100 consisting of the two Motherwell book groups, the Biro Babes, Men with Pens (these two groups of writers) and  high school students whose set text is Janice Galloway’s debut novel “The Trick Is To Keep Breathing”.

It is fair to say that Janice Galloway wowed us as she acted (not read) the opening section of ”The Trick Is To Keep Breathing” and followed with a 15-minute reading from her masterpiece “Clara”.  She was also willing to share with us a few pages of her current work-in-progress ….. although she never got round to that because the audience then plied her with questions for about 90 minutes.  She was by turns

a) witty:

Q:  You have been compared to Sylvia Plath.  How do you feel about the comparison?

A:  Lucky.  I’m still here.

b) Instructive:

Q: Has the internet eased the effort required to research a novel?

A: Never research on the internet.  Stick to books.  You can be sued for inaccuracies published in books.  You’re untouchable on the web – particularly if you use wikipedia.

c) Informative

To paraphrase: “I never know where I’m going when I begin a novel.  I only know once I’ve written the first half.  Then I write the second half and once I’ve finished, I rewrite the first half because now I know what I’m doing”.

d) Disappointing!

Paraphase: “No I’m not going to write Clara II.  Clara I took six years of my life and I’m never going to do anything like that again”.

It was a fascinating event.  Informal, a mixed audience and a very, very generous author.  Much better than anything I have ever attended at the Edinburgh Book Festival  …. seriously!  In preparation I read Janice Galloway’s first 2 novels.

The Trick Is To Keep Breathing won the 1989 MIND/Allan Lane Award for its depiction of mind in turmoil, a mind cracking up.  Incidentally this extract is the one that Galloway performed for us in Motherwell.  The novel is not an easy read, nor is it comfortable but it is accomplished.  Joy (for that is the irony of the protagonist’s name) is suffering from ?.  I thought it was manic depression (for so it sounded to me).  Galloway thinks not.  Interesting how she still doesn’t specify.  She said she had reduced Joy to the absolute low:  she is bereaved (her lover has drowned), she is slowly becoming alcoholic, rapidly becoming anorexic.  Galloway asked whether there was anything else she could do to her.  The novel charts Joy’s downward spiral and forces us to examine why she continues to get out of bed every day.  As Galloway said, we’ve all been there at various times in our lives, scrambling to survive.   It’s absorbing watching what makes Joy “last” as she is slowly and inexorably stripped of all safety nets.

Foreign Parts, Galloway’s second novel, won the 1994 McVities Scottish Writer of the Year Award.  Extract here. It follows the misadventures of two friends, Rona and Cassie, as they tour the Loire Valley.  It soon becomes obvious that they irritate the living daylights out of each other and the interest lies in analysing what makes them such firm friends despite all this.  Well, the answer is forthcoming as Cassie remembers past holidays with male lovers and to be honest this novel may well appeal more to the female readership than the male.  Because Cassie’s memories contain many recognisable scenarios which I find funny.  Males readers may not!  In fact, if truth be told, at times the novel descends from humour to diatribe and is slightly disappointing in that respect.  Someone must have upset Galloway at the time she was writing this.

I reviewed Clara, Galloway’s third and most recent novel here.  I truly consider this a   masterpiece. (6 years well-spent, if you’re reading, Janice!)  It is one of my top 5 novels.  Read an extract here.

Galloway is a superlative author with 3 prizewinning novels to her name.  What is surprising is that the 4th, currently a work-in-progress, has no publisher.  Such are the hazards of being a novelist in the C21st, a time when nothing is to be taken for granted.

My face-2-face reading group celebrates its 3rd anniversary in October and so this is a good time to review the impact it has had on my reading.

At one stage the 20 Scots decided that it was about time that I, the Sassenach in their midst, became educated in the ways of Scottish Literature. So we embarked on a themed read.  The emphasis was firmly on contemporary Scottish literature, though we did pause to take in one or two undisputed Scottish masterpieces.  It has been a surprising journey with some great discoveries along the way.  There truly is a rich seam of Scottish literature to be mined and I will continue to do so.

Listed below are the novels in the sequence we read them.

 In Another Light - Andrew Greig
Saltire Book of the Year 2004
More here. 

Case Histories - Kate Atkinson
Saltire Book of the Year 2005
Atkinson is not usually thought of as a Scottish author, but she is of Scottish descent and lives in Edinburgh.  Case Histories is a great read with Atkinson using her quirkiness and originality to extend the format of the detective novel.  And it has one of the best opening chapters I have ever read. 

Clara – Janice Galloway
Saltire Book of the Year 2002.
Magnificent.  Full review here.

The Accidental – Ali Smith
Whitbread Novel Winner 2005
Text as awful as the paperback cover.   Style over substance with far too much borrowing.  The worse book of the lot.

44 Scotland Street / The Sunday Philosophy Club – Alexander McCall Smith
You can’t read contemporary Scottish literature and ignore the national treasure that is Alexander McCall Smith.  His 44 Scotland Street series is set to become more famous that his Ladies Detective Agency and Bertie is a superstar. The Sunday Philosophy Club series is also set in Edinburgh.  Entertaining enough but compared unfavourably to 44 Scotland Street.

The People’s Act of Love – James Meek
Scottish Arts Council Book of the Year 2006 / Ondaatje Prize 2006
Religious fervour and terrorism clash in Siberia during WWI leadinng to extreme behaviour on all sides.  Despite the castration and cannibalism, this novel contains some beautifully written passages – reminiscent of Tolstoy.  Yet group consensus was that we enjoyed discussing the book more than reading it!  

Lanark – Alasdair Gray
This was an ambitious read and one which we extended over 3 months.  We needed that long to decipher and digest the manifold realities and the magnificent imagination.  Felt by many to be far too obscure.  It fascinated me despite its difficulty.   It took Alasdair Gray 30 years to write.  I suspect it’ll take that long before my thoughts are ordered sufficiently to review it.

Sunset Song – Lewis Grassic Gibbon
Best Scottish Novel of All Time (Public vote 2005)
It’s easy to see why. The novel traces the social changes to the Scottish rural community following the onset of World War One.  Chris Guthrie is one of the most finely painted female portraits to be penned by a man. The childbirth scene is particularly realistic  Most of the novel is written in a Scots variant, invented by Gibbon himself (easier to read than pure Scots – Gibbon didn’t want to alienate his international audience.  A multi-layered novel combining social commentary, emotional maturity and symbolic reference, it is truly a gem deserving all the praise it has received since publication in 1934.

There aren’t enough adjectives to describe this glorious novel. However, here are 3 for starters: intelligent, informative, ingenious.

It is the story of the love, courtship and marriage of Robert and Clara Schumann. Clara, a young naive girl, musical prodigy in her own right, falls for Robert Schumann. Her bullying father opposes the union but, this is the height of the Romantic Era, and true love prevails. Robert and Clara marry but Clara escapes from one prision to another. Robert is beset with mental illness and Clara is beset by no less than 10 pregnancies! Yet, forced to be the breadwinner, she must stay strong and successful …..

Drawing on many details that must have been included in the Schumanns’ marriage diary, Janice Galloway paints a detailed picture of the tensions and the ofttimes present bleakness and desperation in Clara’s life. The narrative style is extraordinary. The action is presented from the viewpoint of the 3 main protagonists: Clara, her father and Robert Schumann himself. The reader feels as though s/he is inside their heads, following their thought processes (stream of consciousness?) yet, at the same time, s/he is slightly distanced because this is a 3rd person narrative with the feel of a biography. The style does take time to get used to but it is well-worth the effort.

The structure of the novel is also extraordinary. An enforced separation during their courtship sees Robert Schumann set over 100 lyrical poems to music. One of these cycles – Frauenliebe und -leben by Adalbert von Chamisso – Schumann’s Opus 42 – consists of 8 poems. The book is structured around these poems, starting with “Seit ich ihn gesehen” (Since I saw him ….), the section in which Clara meets Schumann to “Nun hast du mir den ersten Schmerz getan” (Now you have hurt me for the first time) in which Schumann dies and leaves Clara a widow with 8 children to feed. I found this an ingenious device for interweaving the music into the structure of the novel, demonstrating the fundamental role it played in Clara Schumann’s life.

The backdrop of the novel is extremely colourful, littered as it is with the great composers of the C19th – Mendelssohn, Chopin, Paganini, Lizst and Brahms, each with their own distinctive ways and characters. There’s plenty on musical theory and lots of interesting detail regarding piano teaching methods of the time. Yet, while the music is intrinsic to the story, it never overwhelms the main narrative. While musicians will appreciate the knowing details (Galloway is herself a trained musician, I believe), you do not need to be a musician to appreciate this novel. Augmenting the reading with a recording of Clara’s compositions and a recital of Chamisso’s lyrical poetry turned the book group discussion into a real evening of culture.

A worthy Scottish Saltire Book of Year 2002 and my personal Book of the Year 2006.