FICTION: DOUGLAS KENNEDYreviews Glover's MistakeBy Nick Laird, Fourth Estate
ONE OF the great givens of modern urban life is this: as soon as a neighbourhood or a quartieris labelled branchéor "arty", it is finished as a place for struggling members of the creative classes. For once it has been awarded the cachet of "hip", property values inevitably ascend and the well-heeled move in, and as happened in SoHo in New York, in Oberkampf in Paris and in my own stamping ground of Shoreditch in London, the plundering of la vie bohèmeis an ongoing phenomenon.
Then again, this is nothing new. Money is the way we keep score in life – and in the world of the arts (where anyone who says they don’t look over their shoulder at the competition is both faux-Zen and a compulsive liar), success is often the fault line that ruptures marriages, friendships, and once non-competitive professional relationships. Or, to paraphrase a line from a certain Samuel Johnson: “The mutual civility between artists is one of the most risible scenes in the farce of life.” (He actually said “writers” – but I think he’d grant me the liberty to apply it to all comers.)
Nick Laird's new novel, Glover's Mistake, concerns itself, on one level, with the art/commerce dichotomy – and the way all major centres of finance (in this instance London) are also creative playpens of ambition, where the gulf between "the aspiring" and "the arrived" is ever-widening. In this instance, the artist who has hit the big time is a certain Ruth Marks.
Once upon a time she taught a course at Goldsmiths (the breeding ground for so many YBAs – Young British Artists), but now this fortysomething American has become a star, commanding near seven figures for her latest oeuvre (it’s a big sheet of black paper – Yves Klein Goes Noir). She lives in the Barbican (a curious choice of residence), and is the object of affection for a rather sad chap from the Metrolandish suburb of Hendon named David Pinner (his surname also being the name of a grey Metrolandish suburb).
David once took a class given by Ruth at Goldsmiths – but he has long since given up any thoughts of a creative career and scrapes by teaching in one of those depressing crammer course joints that decorate the West End. He also blogs on the arts for a depressing website with a profoundly Anglo-Miserablist name: The Damp Review. The fact that he is mid-30s, girlfriendless and circumferentially challenged doesn't aid matters. And though he tries to make himself appealing to Ruth, she turns her attention to his younger, more muscular flatmate, James Glover.
But Glover is also a neo-slacker – and one who has a great attachment to the Bible. Not exactly the sort of guy you’d expect to be the object of desire of a fast-lane artist like Ruth. But if there’s one thing Laird’s novel makes very clear: when it comes to matters of the heart, taste crimes abound – especially when David discovers he has a fan in the depth of South London who goes by the Bridget Jones name of Singleton.
As can be gathered, one of Laird's aims in this novel is to lampoon the foibles and neuroses of the arts world. But sustaining a satirical tone over nearly 250 pages is no easy feat – and frequently his characters sound like the sort of quasi-intellectuals who inhabit Woody Allen's lesser movies, spouting off on a self-portrait of Murillo in the National Gallery, or David settling down to an afternoon of "surfing for porn, smoking a spliff and reading Berryman's Dream Songs".
As such, the acerbity of his observations often seems as self-conscious and forced as his central characters. But perhaps a greater problem with the novel is its need to be simultaneously portentous and literary. If you like far-too-crafted sentences, you’re going to adore Laird’s penchant for stylistic over-decoration. Consider this account of a dinner: “They sat at a table as Larry docked a huge plate of risotto in the centre, and gave it one last stir, sweeping it to granulated banks and dunes.”
Granulated banks and dunes? We're talking about a plate of rice here, chum. Laird sometimes scores an observational bullseye – 'On a wet, dark, interminable Wednesday, one of those winter days that lacks an afternoon . . . ' – but he often seems smitten by the way he can find a fruity synonym ("docking" the risotto) for a pedestrian action. A smart stylist dazzles you by not letting you know just how clever he is. But here the cleverness is full frontal and overplayed.
For all its artsy trappings, Glover's Mistakeis another one of those lonely-guy-in-the-big-city novels. I have no problems with this genre – and Laird's talent comes to the fore when capturing the dynamics of self-loathing and emotional longing. But ultimately the novel fails to convince because of the credibility gap at the heart of the storyline. What the hell is Ruth doing in such a loser's milieu, and why don't I believe that it can all be written off to her excessive neuroticism?
Perhaps if I was more taken with Laird’s world view or considered him stylistically ingenuous I could have accepted this rather major narrative problem. It’s a neat trick, making a reader care about solipistic souls. Alas, Laird doesn’t pull it off.
Glover's MistakeBy Nick Laird Fourth Estate, 247pp. £14.99
Douglas Kennedy’s ninth novel,
Leaving the World,
was recently published by Hutchinson