August 2021: Willing

Books read this month: Godspeed (Nickolas Butler, Faber, 2021), Panenka (Rónán Hession, Bluemoose Books, 2021).

"For remember the soul of the universe/Willed a world and it appeared." - 'Jesus Was An Only Son' by Bruce Springsteen.

Willing a world to appear is the noblest aspiration an artist can aim for and making people care about your obsessions is the prize all writers must keep their eye on. There are many ways to do it, of course, but to keep said aim true while trying to bring someone's mind's eye into focus isn't easy. Why aren't there thousands of great books? Because it's hard to write one.

Nickolas Butler has written four. An extraordinary accomplishment for an author whose first novel, 'Shotgun Lovesongs', arrived in 2014, Butler's devastating debut was a catalyst for a fruitful decade. What a writer this fella' is. His books are gifts carrying gold, frankincense and myrrh as the heavenly body of words he uses tell stories, trace arcs and draw conclusions on your stomach walls. A lyrical writer who walks unafraid through prepossessing prose, Butler focuses on relationships between men with everything and nothing to lose all at the same time. His latest masterpiece, 'Godspeed', is a race-against-the-clock page-turner with the distance between the American dream and its malignant reality measuring the morality of his characters. What's it about? God knows... literally. Sure, there's a plausible plot detailing austerity, ambition, addiction and audacity, but the action really happens in the spaces between his sentences. How the reader reacts to the misadventures aspirants Bart, Teddy and Cole of True Triangle Construction drown in reveals everything. 'Godspeed' is a mystery, you see. More a 'did it happen' than a 'whodunnit', the mere detail of reading the details in the book are secondary to the feelings each breathless chapter leaves behind. I couldn't put it down and raced through the love, violence, class, culture, obsession and faith contained within to catch a glimpse of the wizard behind the curtain at the end. No chance. You want answers? They are already inside your heart... and Butler's gift is that his words are roadmaps that lead to the truth contained within each and everyone of us.

'Panenka' is all about truth. A harsh truth. A deadly truth. A truth that's relentless as the rain and will see the title character lose everything. But just as there's a calm before every storm, there can also be clarity before curtains. Written by Rónán Hession, an Irish author with a touch as fine as a bees wing, 'Panenka' is another quiet revolution from the man behind the superb still-life 'Leonard And Hungry Paul' . The story takes place in an unnamed town where "there are lots of unhappy people and it’s a huge relief for them to agree on a single cause of that unhappiness" and in a place that has become “a sort of spare room where all the problems were dumped". One of the unhappy problems that becomes the cross of the town's calling is Panenka's story: he's a footballer who once missed a penalty, cost his team success and has never been forgiven or forgotten. Why hasn't he moved away? That's where we find the centre of the tale Hession tells with what I hope becomes his trademark plain prose and pinpoint precision. This is a story of splendid isolation attempting to break free from the ties that bind and the roots that remain when lives are lived ordinarily amongst extraordinary circumstances. Orbiting around Panenka are brilliantly realised portraits of daughters, mothers, lovers, wasters, bystanders and bastards whose behaviour is always affected by the dark cloud hovering above our hero's head. Sure, none of these people want to be the rainmaker who busts the cloud, but real life isn't like that, is it? We all forget, remember, react and repent every day. The day Panenka forgets to remember is the first day of the rest of his life.

Two new books from two of my favourite new authors... ain't life grand? Cheers, Al x