How else are you meant to be sold the plot of the book you’re holding, but also what filter to use when reading it.
Here’s the one that was used for the novel currently being reviewed:
Trav, thirteen, is trying to come to terms with the death of his father. Jay, Trav’s best friend, is tasked with going through a decade’s worth of writing that Trav wrote after finding his father dead. Stella, Trav’s mother, is trying to keep it together for her son while dealing with irreparable fallout in her adopted family. Together, they try to make sense of grief and its druggy comedown, and what happens when cursed destinies intersect. Powered by the prose — the rhythm and technique — of accent, sociolect, and place, this novel is working-class but not council-estate chic, grim but not grey, and blessed with a slangy Birmingham vernacular not readily found in modern fiction.
If you read that and immediately thought of Close to Home, you’re not the only one. However, that isn’t necessarily a bad thing as Birmingham has a very different history, culture and the citizens have a different perspective from us Belfast types so it has the potential to be quite different in its delivery.
While certain aspects are a little different, the basic premise (working class kid from broken home does lots of drugs at university while harbouring pretensions at being a writer) is still close enough to invite comparisons. Still, are the characters distinct enough to stand on their own?
Yes and no.
The protagonist is drawn reasonably enough to be both direct and to allow for a small amount of subtext to be filled in by the reader. As he is also the writer (speaking about himself in the third person), he’s careful to ensure that he doesn’t come across as too much of a bastard (indeed, in the prologue, he freely admits that he’ll be telling some porkies in the name of ‘his Truth’). The end result is a half blank canvas for the reader to project their own takes onto instead of a solid character whom we are compelled to follow through thick and thin.
This is a shame as there are moments that are so powerfully rendered that they hit the reader in the solar plexus. The main example is the death of Trev’s dad. As an opening, it’s stark, filled with little nostalgic details that accentuate the sadness and leaves a lingering effect throughout. Likewise, a scene detailing allegations of sexual abuse and the aftermath is packed with claustrophobia, disbelief and rage.
Overall, it’s a decent debut novel which is entertaining and poignant, tells its story in a manner that is direct and thoughtful (I finished it in a day) but doesn’t harness the power of the aforementioned scenes to create a compelling narrator and/or narrative. Maybe an extra 50 or so pages would have helped the story go in a different direction or fleshed out the characters a little more. Regardless, there are worse ways to spend your time.
In this case, the blurb didn’t lie to us so it did its job correctly.
Taylor Burns, 2026, Trav: A Novel, Zer0 Books. ISBN-13: 978-1803418537
⏩ Christopher Owens was a reviewer for Metal Ireland and finds time to study the history and inherent contradictions of Ireland. He is currently the TPQ Friday columnist and is the author of A Vortex of Securocrats and “dethrone god”.
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