Number 45 - Lean, Fall, Stand - Jon McGregor

 

The award for worst book cover of the year so far goes to this book.  If I hadn't been following Jon McGregor's career since we read his debut novel If No One Speaks of Remarkable Things at my book group several years ago, I would never have given this a second glance. It doesn't stand out on the shelves and from a distance the title is remarkably difficult to spot. 

That's the negative over with.

As mentioned, McGregor is one of those writers I've been following since his debut over a decade ago.  I own all his books and there isn't a bad one in there.

This one is no exception. 

It opens in Antarctica where, on a quick trip out from the research base to get some photographs, things start to go horribly wrong.  A storm descends quickly and the three members of the party are separated. to compound the problem, the most experienced member of the team (Doc) falls very ill.

The story shifts from there to follow Doc's recovery.  This is told from the point of view of his wife initially before expanding in the final section.

As usual McGregor's prose sings from the page. His writing truly is a thing of beauty. When I say it sings from the page, think ethereal heavenly chorus rather than dodgy karaoke bloke down the pub after seventeen pints. 

In this book, in addition to the beauty of the writing, we have his strongest narrative to date. in most of his other books, he tells big picture stories. In his debut, he painted the picture of a very normal street and made the mundane seem magical. In Reservoir 13, he followed the lives of an entire village in the wake of a tragic disappearance, but crucially, never definitively tried to solve it, just showed us the impact on the people affected.

Here, he manages to follow the ripples of the events in in the first chapters but keeps it personal, and aims for closure at the end of the story. It's the closest to traditional beginning, middle, end that he's written.

He manages to keep up with his usual playfulness with structure and form and word choice. 

The book is split into three parts, called Lean, Fall, and Stand. The separators used to denote time shifts between paragraphs in each of the three segments of the book are \, _, and | in that order. it took me far longer than it should have done to make the connection.

The depiction of the onset of Doc's illness is shocking and brilliant in the way his language becomes more and more confused.  

When he finally returns home we truly feel the exhaustion of his wife. She's a career woman who's used to spending anywhere from 4 to 12 months of the year with her husband pretty much as far as he could possibly be away from her.  Now she's his full time carer. 

For several chapters nearly every line begins with the same phrase, "She had to", hammering home the impact this is having on her. This lessens off as he gains his independence again.   

This is a real contender for best book of the year. A beautifully told told story of disaster and recovery. He manages to be moving and funny and sad all at the same time, frequently in the same sentence.  That's how good McGregor's writing is.

Buy. 

Read. 

Enjoy.