Andrew McMillan (2) (1988–)

In a South Yorkshire town still traumatised by the pit closures of forty years ago and by the cumulative effects of the local team’s failure to win a major trophy since 1912 (Barnsley, in case you hadn’t worked it out), a group of academics from ‘the university’ are running an oral history project, whilst Simon, OnlyFans porn performer and son and grandson of former miners, is rehearsing a Thatcher-themed drag act. Simon’s semi-closeted boyfriend Ryan, hoping to join the police show more soon, is embarrassed by the whole thing, and it’s also a challenge for Simon’s dad, Alex.

McMillan cleverly shifts the viewpoint between the Barnsley locals and the academic outside observers, and laces the text with poetic vignettes of the men underground or on their way to work in the mine. An interesting offbeat glimpse into post-industrial communities, with some real feeling for what people there experience, but also plenty of comedy along the way. Maybe not quite a Germinal for the 2020s, but a step in that direction. show less

A group of academics visit Barnsley, a town in South Yorkshire which has a history of coal pit tragedies, Oaks Colliery explosion in the nineteenth century and Houghton Main Colliery explosion, of 1975, and of miners strike and anti-Thatcher protests during the mid 1980s.

The academics are researching the oral history of the town in order to understand collective memory at source. At first they appear detached and insensitive. The academics anre questioning the grown-up children of the miners show more who were involved in the 1970s explosion and the anti-Thatcher protests.

The book seamlessly moves back and forth between the academics field-notes and their interactions with the miners’ adult children. There are recurring flashbacks to images of miners trudging in morning’s early light to the pit. These images are in contrast to a graphic description of a sexual liaison between two gay men of the 21st century generation townsmen.

At first I couldn’t understand the place of gay guys in the story. One of them is a a drag queen, the grandson of a miner and the descriptive sex scenes and his artistry are in sharp contrast to the images of the miners of the last century.

As the book moves front the Thatcher years to the 2020s, the reader can see the subjects of the academics’ interest are still walking in the shoes of their grandfathers. . The academics come across as cold, giving the townsmen, people who were teenagers children in the 1970s, projects with cardboard maps and paper markers. They ask them to name different buildings, the names they were called, and what they’re called now. It’s when they ask one of the townsmen, to write in a bubble form, what a building could be thinking , that it’s obvious that the two groups are far apart.

The coal-miners’ descendants, free from the descending pit-cages of their forebears, now work at call centres, bars and for surveillance security. They do not have the opportunity of university education, or the ability to leave the town.

Eventually the father of the drag queen speaks out when he’s asked why the men kept coming to the pit knowing that they could die. He is questioned as to whether the townspeople remember it.

They don’t want to be thinking about the fact that they are literally walking over the top of bodies that were crushed to death beneath them. How you go and get a few bits from the shop if that was in your head every single day? Peoples have to get on people have to live, there’s no point digging all this up.

An academic answers with,
You’re absolutely right that anger that hurt you’re absolutely right and I hear you all idea was that if we found new ways of thinking about the past if we could do it through poetry or by reframing memory, if we could find a new language for how we articulate these memories, then it might give us new ways of moving forward; ways of imagining different futures
It is clear that the two groups are world’s apart.

Toward the end of the book, it becomes clear that there is light at the end of the tunnel, pun intended, as the gay drag queen dressed as Margaret Thatcher creatively speaks to a night-club audience. The contrast between the rigidity and self-perceived enlightenment of the academics, and the creative boldness of the drag queen hint at possible progress.

i thoroughly enjoyed this book, and was good to be back in old England, albeit being reminded of the Thatcher years. show less

Barnsley is a town that was defined by its pit. Men are men and that's the way it has always been. For Alex it's been a repression of his feelings, for his son Simon it is a dead-end job and the escape of OnlyFriends and a drag persona and for his brother Brian it is the work with researchers about his town. Over time the pit has closed and the town has become less of itself, failing schools, lack of jobs but the people still have their pride.
Having worked in the Barnsley area many years ago show more I recognised so many of the characters in this book and the circumstances they find themselves in. I love the juxtaposition of the run-down shopping centre, the fact that McDonalds left the town (although there are a couple on the outskirts) and the boutique, Pollyanna. selling high-end designer clothes out of reach of the majority. The theme of the book is change but also about sexuality and it works well on all levels. It's a poetic little gem show less

I picked this up a few times in the bookshop before getting round to buying it, as the dips in didn't really grab me, but I'm really glad I eventually read it -- this really is a collection that hangs together as a whole, with repeating themes and style throughout, one to immerse yourself in.

The main theme is fresh boundless new ground -- the male body -- which has perhaps been awaiting a poet of this sensitivity to tackle it. The style is also fresh and unique, using spacing in place of show more punctuation. The effect of this is subtle but strong -- even when reading in your head you find yourself breathing to the pattern of the words, bringing you into the work physically -- how entirely appropriate to the subject matter!

In a year of strong poetry debuts in the UK, this stands out and well deserves the critic acclaim and prize nominations it has received. show less