It has to be one of the strangest ever career moves that Graham Norton, once a gloriously trashy comedian and presenter of X-rated late-night talk shows, now finds himself a bestselling novelist and one of the most universally beloved faces of the BBC.
Or perhaps his taking up the pen shouldn’t be that surprising, a quick glance at Norton’s Instagram reveals his penchant for obscure fiction, with titles such as Albert French’s Billy and Susan Ertz’s Madame Claire recently winning him over.
His latest novel is his third and most personal. As Home Stretch is technically popular fiction, I entered it with the same trepidation I feel entering a sports shop, overwhelmed by the sense that nothing here is for me, but I quickly found myself totally engrossed in Norton’s surprising and touching novel.
The novel begins with a crash. It is 1987 and six young lives are speeding along in a blue Cortina when it hits a roundabout and flips through the air. Three are killed instantly and one is paralysed for life. Only Connor Hayes, who was driving, and Martin Coulter, the son of the local doctor, escape unharmed. The citizens of Mullinmore, devastated by their losses, seek out someone to blame for this great calamity. In a typically small-town Irish way, someone must be the target of the whispers, the side glances, the awkward silences. Hence, Connor, as the driver, quickly becomes persona non grata.
Norton is an acute surveyor of small-town Ireland and the complicated mechanism that runs it. He recognises the sad truth that every town in Ireland can relate to Mullinmore and its tragedy in some aspect, imbuing a sense of universality to the novel.
Connor hastily realises he has no future there and decides it’s best to leave the town that has grown to resent him. Arriving in Liverpool with a backpack and a couple of fivers, Connor can start his life afresh and, finally, far away from conservative Ireland, explore the queerness that he had denied in himself his whole life.
Personal story
It isn’t difficult to connect the dots between the lives of Connor and Graham Norton. In a recent interview, the author explains that in his early life he was drawn mostly to two things: adventure and anonymity. His quest for the latteris what brought him, much like Connor, to the UK. Their queerness led them to leave their respective west Cork towns (I feel I am safe to assume the gay scene in 1980s Bandon wasn’t exactly hopping), taking part in that ritualistic flight of freedom to a big city that is so central to the lives of young, rural gay people, which was so timelessly captured by the beating synths of Bronski Beat in Smalltown Boy.
Yet, in hindsight, it seems Norton feels some remorse for fleeing all those years ago. In the acknowledgments of Home Stretch, he thanks “all the people who stayed in Ireland to fight for the modern, tolerant country it has become”. He goes on to suggest that he “took the easy way out and left to find places where [he] could be [himself]”. Perhaps Home Stretch is his atonement.
It is excellent that Norton decided to write such an unabashedly queer novel. I’m not saying he goes full Dennis Cooper – Home Stretch is very much a popular fiction version of a queer novel – but I am filled with a certain giddiness knowing that a novel with repeated references to twinks and Fire Island is now being thrust into the hands of tens of thousands of Irish mothers. Echoes of Tóibín’s The Blackwater Lightship reverberate throughout, perhaps a bit too loudly at times, but that can be forgiven given the bedrock-like position of Tóibín’s novel within the queer Irish canon.
The book is far from flawless. As it settles into its own home stretch, the plot begins to resemble a Lidl cheese twist. Certain revelations are just unbelievable and Norton becomes quite heavy-handed with his message of tolerance and acceptance.
Overall, though, I enjoyed my time with Home Stretch. Norton did pull a couple of laughs out of me, something I feel a lot of writers don’t realise they’re allowed to do. He is a deftly skilled writer who has honed a prose style that suits his stories perfectly, conversational and light, capable of traversing tragedy and humour with equal aplomb.
Despite what he says on Eurovision night, there is an unmistakable Irishness to Norton’s voice that I think greatly aids in winning over his readers. And let’s not forget, he is a showman at heart. Home Stretch is a wonderful display.
