In contention for my Book of the Year, and it’s only March! ‘The Blind Light’ by Stuart Evers is a novel that I was sad to finish. The writer presents recent history intelligently yet with a light touch through the eyes of the Moores and the Carters, two very different families drawn together through their fathers’ friendship. Drum and Carter first meet in the 1950s during National Service, the former quietly rescuing the latter from a gambling blunder. After a spell in Doom Town, the army manufactured post-apocalyptic town where the soldiers carry out ‘rescue’ practice, and a place which haunts both men for decades to come, they return to ordinary life. Drum once again is a cog in the wheel of the Ford factory line in Dagenham. Carter drifts into one of the ‘jobs for the boys’, his class and his money making life easy. Drum marries Gwen; Carter marries Daphne; both couples have children; both seem set on different paths.
However, Carter offers Drum an escape from the Dagenham strikes, the pollution and the gathering hopelessness when he offers him the chance to run a dairy farm that adjoins his country estate. When the Moores move North, all seems well for a time. Surprisingly, the wives become friends. Nevertheless, these bonds do not transfer to the younger generation and the fallout after an extraordinary event is both painful and life-changing for the Moores.
‘The Blind Light’ encourages the reader to think about how certain domestic and international episodes can affect individuals in a way that is both personal and universal. Nevertheless, the real strength of this novel is the meticulous way in which Evers explores family relationships and, in particular, parenting. What makes people as they are? What binds them and undoes them? What engenders loyalty and what encourages duplicity? Nothing is simple yet absolutes are recognised.
Nearing the end of her life, Gwen has a moment of clarity: ‘She is looking at her children and she sees them both safe and free.’ She no longer dwells on unjust words, ill-judged actions, or sacrifices made. There is a suggestion that these simple adjectives are to be treasured, never more than in our own unsettled times. Evers constructs a tough world but one that is ultimately full of light.
My thanks to NetGalley and Pan Macmillan Picador for a copy of this novel in exchange for a fair review.

I tried very hard to like this book, as it promised such a breadth of history from the 1950s onwards and a central relationship which would carry it through. However I found the style of writing very off-putting, trying too hard in places and being deliberately obscure in others, presumably to intrigue and engage the reader. Sadly for me this was unsuccessful. The characters barely interested me and did not ring true; I really did not care about them or their interactions, and - unusually for me - I gave up well before the halfway mark. For me a disappointing novel, though it may well attract the attention of those who appreciate the very particular style of this writing.

Stuart Evers is an acclaimed and accomplished author and every page is finely-wrought, full of carefully-observed, arresting prose, and polished, effective dialogue.

I struggled with it, though. I found the allusive opening tricky, and initially couldn't warm to main protagonist, Drum. For me, the story only really started to come to life with Gwen and her lovely, textured relationship with Nick, the ageing poet and his daily pint of black and tan. Evers has many colours in his palette of social classes and family relationships, and this is what really kept me reading. I also loved his compact, powerful descriptive technique. You could see and smell 'the plum and milk sofa' with its antimacassars; the room that smelt 'of lilac and baking'; the 'peach sherbet carpeting'. I was swept into the world of 1990s Raves and the fierce transactions between gay and heterosexual couples, the writing had a very forceful energy here. The complexity of the class dynamics between Drum and Gwen and his officer-class chum/mentor/antagonist Carter and his wife Daphne is finely-crafted and works well, bringing to a successful, if slightly melodramatic conclusion, the seeds of betrayal that have been sewn through the decades, generation to generation.

What also didn't quite work for me was the important thread of existential doom that is meant to be hanging over both families, as it was throughout the Cold War, right up to Gorbachev and perestroika. There's something a little preachy about the place that the threat of nuclear destruction holds in the narrative. There is a key set-piece climax, based entirely on what happens when the two families are forced into close proximity against the threat of nuclear disaster, which sends the two families into another level of dismay and which, for me, felt forced. It almost felt as though the book would have worked just as well if it simply focussed on the seemingly random choices that the characters, like all of us, make in life, and how they shape our lives for better or worse. Evers has his main characters ponder this at regular intervals, and writes brilliantly about this.

There's something very weighty (in a good way) about Evers' work, and the characters and their world stay with you long after you finish reading the book. I'm thankful to NetGalley and Picador for a chance to read it now.

This is the story of Drum and Carter and how their lives and the lives of their children and grandchildren interact, from the 1950's to the present day. They are shaped by events of the times, particularly the Cold War, when Drum and Carter's National Service experience leads them to act in certain ways. They are not pleasant people - they are rivals and do deals with each other which have repercussions on their children. There are many detailed descriptions of sexual encounters which would be best left out in my opinion. The author has a very particular style of writing - it consists of short descriptive phrases in not quite complete sentences, which almost act like a stream of consciousness, but with punctuation. I found this distracting and although the basic story is worth telling, it is far, far, far too long. I was glad to finish it.

I'm always apprehensive when a novel is tipped for the big prizes prior to release but having read The Blind Light I wouldn't be at all surprised if it happens for this book. This is the long, immaculately woven story of two very different families against the backdrop of decades of social history. Whilst it deserves the superlatives it will undoubtedly attract for its scale and ambition, what really moved and captivated me was the visceral intimacy and humanity with which the author captures the interior lives of his characters. It is profoundly insightful on friendship, desire, family, ageing and class, with many passages of extraordinary eloquence. Highly recommended to anyone who enjoys literary fiction that's not too rarified.