3:AM Magazine

By Max Dunbar.

Heartland, Anthony Cartwright, Tindal Street 2009 

There has been an interesting literary debate recently on realism versus meditation. Realists argue that UK authors come from increasingly narrowing backgrounds (suburbs + English degree + MA creative writing = published novelist is the standard career path) with the consequence that contemporary fiction has lost scope and vision, falling into a tight little spiral of focus on relationships and families. Johann Hari wrote that there are ’so many talented young novelists I have read who seem to think the real, heaving world outside their study is a vulgar concern to be left to journalists and TV series like The Wire.’ Meditators come back with: okay, then, what would you like us to write about? Do you really want to demote fiction to a branch of investigative reportage?

I’m firmly on Hari’s side of this argument which was why Anthony Cartwright’s novel Heartland seemed like such an exciting proposition. It’s set in a rough Midlands town strafed by growing ethnic and religious sectarianism. There’s a big football match coming up with a mosque side versus white Sunday leaguers. There are Tipton lads in Guantanamo, an ominous far right presence, a blinkered and complacent local elite - a typical early 2000s timebomb of a town. Heartland has the potential of a great British novel. It is a wasted opportunity.

Why? Where to start? There’s the central plotline. The crux of the book is supposed to be this iconic football match. Rob, the book’s protagonist, is an ex-professional footballer now working as a teaching assistant. He sees the upcoming game as a way to salvage a little self esteem. He’s also speculating on the fate of his old friend Adnan, who disappeared some years back, and may or may not have become a terrorist. There’s a strong implication that Adnan may appear on the pitch, under a different name. Everything hinges on the match, it dominates what little dialogue Cartwright gives his characters. We all go into competition with a personal agenda yet Cartwright hints that the community’s deeper problems - inequality, poverty, racism - will be resolved on the day. Football often works as a metaphor for something else, but in this case I do think that too much is being invested in the national game.

And yet Cartwright puts so much faith in the sport that he structures the whole novel around it, right down to the footballing terminology for section titles, and the long, dull recap of an England game, viewed from a local pub, that staggers through the book like a drunk trying to find his way home in the dark. An endless discussion of strategy and tactics in phonetic Midlands accents - what the fuck was Tindal Street’s editor thinking?

Let’s go back to the plot, such as it is. The protagonist Rob, because he’s a sensitive guy, has a crush on the Asian teacher at his school. There’s a clumsy reference to 9/11. And that is pretty much it. The election and the match are signposted on the horizon, but by the end of Heartland you’d be hard pressed to notice that these events have even taken place. Cartwright keeps you ploughing along with the promise of climax that is never delivered.

And what a long road this is. Cartwright believes in establishing everything, character and story and mood, through internal monologue. As I read, I found myself rewriting paragraphs in my head, like a Private Eye parody:

-You still see that Karen Woodhouse?

-No.

No, Rob thought. Not since they split up. That had been when they got back from Crete. Didn’t quite know why. Back then the ironworks had been open and you still saw a bit of colour on a Friday night. Not so many Asians then. Of course he had  nothing against them. Didn’t drink much. Not like his uncle Jim. In the Pack Horse every night. Drank Tetley’s Bitter. Rob was drinking a lot more now. Nice to get a pint of Tetley’s by the fire. Twenty-four hour licencing now but (continues interminably)

The metropolitan rich often characterise everywhere north of London as a decimated wasteland full of old men in flat caps going ‘ah, buggeh, they’ve closed down t’pit’. The Midlands of Heartland is actually portrayed like this. The tone is all radio-play, Angry Young Men, everything washing into a formless grey, indistinct and somehow soulless. It’s not realism but a certain idea of realism that was getting old even in Orton’s time. I have lived in working-class communities, places with massive deprivation, and yet places that had vibrant and diverse social landscape. The attitude of play and fun arose not just despite the poverty but in a sense because of it. The Daily Mail slur that ‘the poor always seem to find the money for beer and cigarettes’ has a grain of truth. When you have nothing and life is a bitter grind you are going to commit yourself to hedonism at any conceivable opportunity. Alan Sillitoe, and later Irvine Welsh, would give a more realistic picture of the UK working class than the po-faced kitchen sink dramas ever could.

Heartland has moments of fine observation. The BNP candidate surrounds himself with racist thugs and yet still manages to maintain his electoral image of the open-minded patriot, simply concerned about high immigration and ‘political correctness’. The ward’s Labour councillor, Jim Bayliss, is the book’s only convincing character. A bloated shark in a puddle-sized pond, he represents the worst of the communalist Labour Party that has been taking its vote for granted since ‘97. Yet he retains an echo of his dedication to public service, and there is a sad and affecting scene where Bayliss is chased off an estate whose residents don’t recognise the man who has been their representative for two decades.

But moments like this are fleeting, glimmers of light in dreary shadows. I was prepared to love this book, but Cartwright has messed up his opportunity so badly that it’s embarrassing. If this is the future of realism, maybe we should go back to staring at our navels.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Max Dunbar was born in London in 1981. He recently finished a full-length novel and his short fiction has appeared in various print and web journals including Open Wide, Straight from the Fridge and Lamport Court. He also writes articles on politics and religion for Butterflies and Wheels. He is Manchester’s regional editor of Succour magazine, a journal of new fiction and poetry. He is reviews editor of 3:AM and blogs here.

First published in 3:AM Magazine: Sunday, November 8th, 2009.