Jon Ransom

In the depths of England’s Yoknapatawpha County (a.k.a. North Norfolk), Eli Stone and his aunt Dreama live, despised for unclear reasons by their hostile neighbours, on the edge of a barren field. Eli’s mother is believed drowned in the recent catastrophic flood (February 1953), and Eli lusts after showman Jimmy Smart, who is staying in the barn and spends suspiciously large amounts of time pouring water over his gleaming naked body within sight of Eli. Smart seems to be temporarily on show more the run from his own family destiny, wrangling the uncontrollable painted horses of the Gallopers, but his twin brothers are out looking for him. Meanwhile, Dreama has developed a fascination with Jimmy’s aunt Esme, the fortune-teller...

It would be easy to make this heavily gothic dish of three parts Faulkner to one part DH Lawrence seem overblown and ridiculous, but it isn’t. Ransom cleverly uses the separation from the outside world that the gothic formula implies to give us a sense of what it might be like growing up gay in the closed world of a small, conservative rural community in the 1950s, but he doesn’t force us to take any of it unduly seriously. A cunningly crafted gay love story that manages to make a familiar corner of the world quite disturbing and strange. show less

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: From one of the most acclaimed debut novelists of 2022 author of the Polari Prize-shortlisted The Whale Tattoo. Jon's new book The Gallopers is a visceral and mesmerising novel of deceit, desire and unspeakable loss.

Three Men, One Secret

1953. Eli is nineteen years old and lives alongside a cursed field with his strange aunt Dreama. Six months before, his mother disappeared during the North Sea flood. Unsure of his place in the world and of the man he is show more becoming, Eli is ready to run.

Shane Wright is a man with plenty to hide. Caught in a complicated relationship with Eli, Shane is desperate to maintain the double life that he has created for himself. Then Jimmy Smart appears. Jimmy Smart, the mysterious showman who turns the gallopers at the fair. Under his watchful gaze, Eli discovers a world he knows nothing about with rules he cannot understand.

Three men bound together in a blistering story that spans 30 years, from 1953 into the 1980s and the AIDS epidemic.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: Identity, belonging, self-knowledge...in the 1950s in rural Norfolk (an English county for those in the US)...for a queer kid, two opportunistic (in different ways) men on what we would now call "the downlow." The North Sea flood of 1953 was very severe in Eastern flatland England. Somehow Eli's mother vanishes, presumed dead, in the chaos; that's when our story begins. Social attitudes towards queers weren't liberal or positive, but Eli's a teen and no one anywhere ever has succeeded in stopping teens from having sex. Prohibit it all you like they're still doin' it. Eli sure is; so's shane, a cruel, mocking sort who feels bigger when he belittles but who needs Eli for release. Along comes older, worldly Jimmy and the sex really rocks.

Living with his Aunt Dreama, a weird woman with lots of Beliefs, Eli feels stifled and isolated. As what young queer wouldn't. Shane's coping meca=hanism is abuse; Jimmy's is pragmatism; Eli's is submission, accepting everything as how it must be, learning the odd country beliefs like in Midsommar so as not to be caught out.

There is a lot of sex in this novel. The eww-ick homophobes are ritually cautioned; but the not-queer-not-squeamish will likely feel it to be gratuitous. It belongs there, it really does have a point to make about physical intimacy, sexual intimacy, emotional intimacy existing on a spectrum, and often enough shifting between thrusts; if that sentence made you squirm a bit, this ain't a read for you.

Dialogue tags there are few; punctuation marks there are none; when we get to the 1980s bits of the story we switch to a screenplay format. Still without punctuation but told in short, punchy sentences. If you've read the nouveau roman by Robert Pinget, The Inquisitory, and did not want to hurl that book at a wall, you're safe to enter here. Beckett readers won't feel overly challenged.

I will say that I often felt as though your attention was deliberately being testingly demanded to little noticeable added effect. I can't get past four stars because of that. I won't deny that it does add layers of intrigue to the read; it also doesn't deliver on them in a conventional way. No one said it had to be conventional, of course, but it does not feel...welcoming...to the idly curious.

Setting a novel about queer desire outside the middle class, outside the sophisticated elite, is quite unusual for a 1950s setting. It's still not common to have working class gay men presented in stories. Author Ransom makes the choices work by using his demanding, no-hands-held style. You, dear reader, are outside the charmed circle, among people most of you won't ever have known, and so you need to keep your wits about you.

If you can go with the stylistic choices, and are willing to alter a few behaviors to keep yourself attentive and sharp, you're in for a very good read indeed. show less

It took me a while to read The Whale Tattoo by Jon Ransom. This is the kind of book that I like to take my time with, and I did that.

Joe left his family for a couple of years. The events that sparked that are revealed slowly throughout the novel. His constant companion is the river... the water whispering truths and lies to him, drawing him closer and giving him a constant sense of doom. It all began with a dead whale on the shore and things have been slipping from Joe's control ever show more since.

Ransom's writing style is unusual; staccato, shocking at times, and authentic. I found this novel to be engaging and heart-breaking and, in some ways, that makes it difficult for me to describe it in a review. As dark as some of the subject matter is, I found the novel to be beautiful. Part of its beauty is in the unique writing style of Ransom. I can honestly say that I've never read anything quite like it and I have read a lot of books over the years.

Joe made my heart hurt. He experiences love, loss, tragedy and everything in between on the pages of this book. His head is a comfortable and sad place to spend some time, but I don't regret it at all. This wasn't a book that I was relieved to finish, in fact, I wanted to keep reading once I had reached the end.

If you enjoy unusual fiction then you will probably enjoy this story. show less