James Flint (3)

‘Pretty much everyone at some point, it seemed, swam the wrong way up some uncharted river, and had to rely on luck, on strangers, or family, to help them find their way back.’

I’m torn between 3 and 4 stars for this one – maybe I’ll decide by the end of the review….

This is certainly a well-written novel about families, secrets and is also a very modern look at the family unit, with the 2 main clans of the Wolds and the Nolans linked by previous marriages. So, there are lots of half-brothers and sisters which got a little confusing at times (I found myself drawing family trees so that I could keep a track of who was who!). The metaphor right from the start, with Alex wading into the Thames to try to rescue a whale, is one that hangs over the whole book. It is a novel about finding your place in the world, about getting lost and needing help to make it back, about keeping quiet and suffering or about opening up and sharing. As it moves back and forward in time, starting with a funeral and taking in a paragliding accident and car crashes, we gradually learn to understand what it is about these characters and families that is tearing them apart: Alex, the financier having a crisis of confidence; Matthew the eco-warrior; Emily, the journalist who has lost her job in dubious circumstances; Caitlin and her brother Sean, and half-brother Jamie who all have strained relationship.

The book deals with some weighty issues as the stories unravel: suicide and mental illness; pregnancy and abortion; domestic physical abuse. There are secrets and lies, and there are family tragedies to be unfolded. Where I feel the book was let down, and why I hover betwixt and between, is the way it is finished. The last section, only about 10 pages or so, tries too hard to tie everything up too neatly. It feels rushed and a little awkward, and whilst I appreciate that we can’t all wallow in suffering and despair, this ‘happy’ ending (heavily qualified by the tragedies which have preceded this) just felt too easy.

But, I would certainly recommend the book. It is well-written, and the sense of place is central to the characters and their sense of belonging. So, I’m going to cop-out and give it 3.5 stars; as much as I enjoyed it and admired the writing, it could have been so much more, especially at the end.
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Anyone writing a novel about the connections between a couple of families rooted in the English midlands, and reflecting the mores and obsessions of the times through which they live, inevitably risks comparisons with George Eliot's Middlemarch. In my view, James Flint's Midland (which I supported through the crowdfunding model of its publisher Unbound) could survive a few rounds in a metaphorical boxing ring with Middlemarch, and emerge with honour and points scored, even if not the ultimate victor. The puritanical part of me may have been a little uncomfortable with the high amount of illegal drug taking (pun intended), whilst acknowledging this to be just as much a part of the milieu in which the book is set as are bankers with flash cars and the financial chicanery that led to the 2008 crash. Banking, you may recall, was also a feature of Eliot's great nineteenth century novel of provincial English life. What she did not go in for (so far as I can remember) is to draw her novel towards a close with a melodramatic series of events of an intensity - and one might suggest implausibility - now commonplace in TV soap operas and continuing dramas like Casualty. For, without giving, too much away, the casualty department is indeed where this novel ends up, not to mention a fight in the hospital waiting room, shocking revelations from the past, and a literal collision between the Wold and Nolan families. Midland was something of a marathon effort, twelve years in the making, but it finishes with a highly dramatic sprint.… (more)