James Clammer is another completely new name to me. This edition comes with no cover blurb so I basically went in completely blind and not knowing what to expect.
Insignificance is the story of one hellish day in the life of a down on his luck plumber in an unnamed town in middle England. He's recovering from a nervous breakdown, the reasons for which become abundantly clear as the narrative continues, and he's out on his first job since his recovery. We also meet his born again Christian wife and their estranged son. To say much more about the story would be a spoiler.
Clammer writes in an unusual and almost poetic style, and it's that that makes this book so compulsively readable. If you'd told me that a man trying to drain a boiler could be as immersive a reading experience as this, I would have laughed in your face. But the power of Clammer's prose makes the mundane seem strangely significant and meaningful. The sentence structure is deeply unusual and wrongfoots the reader (in a good way) on a regular basis.
The early part of the novel puts us firmly in the man Joseph's head. It's not the happiest place in the universe to be. this is an unimportant man who things just happen to and he knows it. his recovery is not yet complete. The writing is so good we feel his physical and mental wounds equally.
For a book with a distinct lack of real action, this really put me through the emotional wringer - especially in the latter half of the book. The man Joseph is an everyman and totally relatable. His relationship with his wife and son are heartbreakingly rendered.
Being just a snapshot of one day in his life, this book does leave many threads hanging in the air. Fans of a closed narrative with a clearly defined resolution to any drama will probably find this frustrating. Fans of good, intelligent writing about people who feel real will love it.
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