"Rainbow Milk" by Paul Mendez

Shortlisted for the 2021 debut fiction prize at the British Book Awards.

At the age of nineteen, Jesse, a young black man from Dudley in the UK, is disfellowshipped from the Jehovah's Witnesses for being gay. He moves to London and becomes a drug-fuelled rent boy. This book chronicles his experiences. He is befriended by a supportive network of gay men and women, and people of colour, all struggling against a world they see as controlled by straight white males. 

I presume that this novel is largely autobiographical. This raises a problem for a critic. My comments are not meant to undervalue in any way the reality of the lived-in experiences described. The authenticity of the narrative was often overwhelming. But it seemed to be more of a memoir than a novel.

The main character is defined mostly by his opposition to his context. He is bitter and resentful about his birth mother and white stepfather; he is very angry about the Jehovah's Witnesses and their version of God. He works as a waiter at a posh London restaurant and sees almost all of the diners as spoilt and self-centred; he feels they look down on him or see him as a threat (There are several wonderful pages of hugely realistic dialogue presented as snippets overheard by an overworked waiter which are the best in the book). His customers as a rent boy divide into those who are kind and those who are exploitative. He is angry and bitter, particularly against  white men (the irony being that he is sexually attracted "to lick, suck and fuck white male ass" ). Almost the only positive side to his character is his deep love of and knowledge of music. Unfortunately, since one of my many failings is that I am more or less totally ignorant of any music post-1970, I was unable to appreciate the pages and pages of musical hagiography.

Other characters seemed stereotypical. The gay white poet, published by a gay white contemporary from Cambridge who was easily monied, descending from landed gentry, the pair of them part of the "horrible, toxic, racist, complacent, inbred, white supremacist homosexual world of high poetry" (Brixton, Ch 4) While the author's past is represented by the industrial proletariat, his present and future are worlds where there are few shop assistants or warehouse workers or lorry drivers, or even research scientists and engineers; everyone he knows now is creative or academic. 

The author is very good at capturing the speech patterns of different dialects but too many of the dialogues are dominated by speeches in which the characters represent points of view as if this novel is a sociological essay. These moments undermine the authentic feel of the rest of the novel. Perhaps in the author's world people really do speak so coherently but not in mine.

I felt too often I was being preached at, rather than being captivated by the story.

Selected quotes:

• "I don’t know this about England when I did back in Jamaica, but they have this whole spread, thick like lard pon bread, of people who can’t read, can’t talk good, scratch themselves up like dog with flea, don’t understand a thing about life outside their own head, but think they can call me nigger, darkie, coon, gorilla, tell me to go back to my own country where I belong and stop steal their sunlight – I don’t have enough back in the jungle?" (Swan Village July 20, 1959)
• ‘I don’t want to get better at suffering, Norman. I want to be happy."  (Swan Village July 20, 1959)
• "I don’t like this world. I can’t go to church when God make me humiliate so"  (Swan Village July 20, 1959)
• "Two evangelists, both mic’ed up, competed with each other over dub basslines at the station’s mouth." (Great Bridge August 2, 2002, Ch 1)
• "Johnny was scrubbing his cup as if an alien’s tongue had rimmed it" (Great Bridge September 19, 2001 Ch 4)
• "He recognised that if he was a tall, blond white boy, everything would have been different." (Great Bridge September 19, 2001 Ch 4)
• "He had thought of himself as a blond white boy all his life. He’d never thought of himself as a black boy, or compared himself to other black people." (Great Bridge September 19, 2001 Ch 4)
• "He knew he would have to spend the rest of his life convincing people that he wasn’t too black." (Great Bridge September 19, 2001 Ch 4)
• "‘So you’m part o’ the furniture, then?’ ‘The squashy old sofa. Or the vintage slot machine, take your pick,’" (Earl's Court, May 4, 2002 Ch 1)
• "Jesse realised he’d spent much of his life learning what it was to be a black man from white men. You’re like a black boy trying to be a white boy trying to be a black boy." (Earl's Court, May 4, 2002 Ch 2)
• "The bright morning, even if it wasn’t sunny, pursued him like paparazzi." (Earl's Court, May 4, 2002 Ch 3)
• "Graham wasn’t even really a football fan anyway, which put him in a minority of one among the Brothers of the congregation, who, even while they quoted scriptures warning against idolatry, were openly worshipful of the Baggies’ Number 9." (Earl's Court, May 4, 2002 Ch 3)
• "His smile had the capacity to convey every intention and emotion, and had faded slightly, transmitting concern." (Bruce Grove, December 25, 2002, Ch1)
• "He had never prayed, anyway, not really. He said words in his head but could not believe he was speaking to a real being, who was actively listening. As far as he was concerned, a conversation had to be between at least two voices; otherwise he was talking to himself, and he was not mad." (Bruce Grove, December 25, 2002, Ch1)
• "He’d found someone who could love him, whom he’d be willingly led by if he was blind." (Bruce Grove, December 25, 2002, Ch4)

A fascinating, bitter, portrayal of a segment of contemporary London life. August 2021

At one stage Mendez references, as novels portraying black life in England in the middle to later part of the twentieth century, Small Island by Andrea Levy and The Lonely Londoners by Sam Selvon. Both these work better as novels. He also references the unutterably superb Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin, which is about a young man whose upbringing conflicts with his homosexual desires. 

Autobiographes of rent boys reviewed in this blog include:

• Making Beds in Brothels by Adam Brock
• Street Kid: A Rent Boy's Tale by Ned Williams

This review was written by the author of Bally and Bro, Motherdarling  and The Kids of God

"Brooklyn" by Colm Toibin

Longlisted for the Booker Prize and winner of the Costa Award in 2009.

Eilis, younger daughter of a widowed mother, grows up in a small town in  1950s Dublin. Despite her intelligence, she can only get a part time job serving in a shop. Father Flood, a priest visiting his home town from Brooklyn, NY, arranges for her to go to New York and for a room and a job to be waiting for her. She realises that Rose, her elder sister, has sacrificed her own future to look after the mother, what with the three boys working in England and all. Eilis proceeds to fall in love in New York; then she is called back to Ireland.

At times this novel read like a documentary. Every last detail is lovingly recorded, from brother Jack's handwriting to seasickness on the Atlantic crossing to how to get through immigration to the nervous Jewish law professor. I found this rather over the top. I understand that the modern dictum is that the author should know every last detail about the characters down to what they carry in their pockets but I am not sure how much it needs to be shared: Shakespeare's stage directions are minimal compared with those in eg Pinter's The Homecoming or Osborne's Look Back in Anger; does this not then leave more for the audience to fill in. Certainly there were an awful lot of details that didn't add to the plot and I didn't think you needed that level of detail to make me know the character of the protagonist.

There were delightful moments: I loved the split in the boarding house between the prim and proper young ladies and those who wanted a good time; and Father Flood was reassuringly practical and empathetic. But the plot as a whole didn't really grip me until the conflict began between the mother who seemed to be manipulating Eilis to force her to stay in Ireland and Eilis missing her fella. This wasn't until the last quarter so the book was a slow burn.

Eilis had a very pedestrian inner life as well. Every dilemma she faced was spelt out clearly. This actually was a brilliant feature of the book because it made you follow her uncertainties. Did she love the boy or not? Even at the end you're not exactly sure but isn't that the way we all are? We weigh up our options (perhaps a little less cold-bloodedly than Eilis) based on our perceptions (which are perhaps a little less clear than Eilis) and we come to a conclusion which we will never know is right or wrong and which we might in any case change later on down the line. This was a tremendous strength of the book.

A carefully constructed jewel.

May 2016; 252 pages

This review was written by the author of Bally and Bro, Motherdarling  and The Kids of God

"Elizabeth is missing" by Emma Healey

Maud is old and losing her memory. She lives alone with a carer to look after her in the mornings and a long-suffering (this is not how Maud sees it!) daughter Helen in the afternoons. Maud becomes convinced that her friend Elizabeth is missing. So Maud decides to investigate. But her investigation gets confused with her memories of when her sister Sukey went missing just after WWII, when Maud was still a child. So we have one investigation in which unreliable memories of long ago are mingled with the misunderstandings of a child and another in which the increasingly unreliable memories of the present colour the understandings of this old person.

It was beautifully written. It was highly evocative of the difficult times just after the second world war. Food and clothes rationing prevent a weary people having the good time they crave. People are damaged by death and prisoner of war camps and hasty marriages are regretted.

The slow progress of the disease wasting Maud's memory is also hauntingly chronicled. There are terrible moments when she wets herself and when she gets angry with her daughter and when she cannot remember her daughter's name. These mingle with moments of comedy: the care worker who is always telling her about old people being mugged and attacked and the wonderful moment when she tells her daughter about the dreadful woman who works for her and is so untidy (it is actually her own granddaughter but she has forgotten Katy). And there are the heart-warming moments such as when Katy finds her in the street and takes her out of the rain (Maud has an umbrella but can neither remember what it is called no what to do with it) into a coffee bar but Maud can't manage the big cup so Katy gets an espresso cup and pours the coffee into that a bit at a time making Maud feel not clumsy but that her hands are too delicate for the big cup.

Both stories are woven together carefully. A lot of the extraneous characters are stripped away. We learn almost nothing about Maud's husband Patrick who is dead and we never find out at all about Katy's father, presumably the husband that Maud's daughter Helen had at one time. But those who are important to the story are lovingly created.

This is a terrible book if, like me, you have an elderly relative who is becoming increasingly forgetful and therefore increasingly vulnerable. But it is winderfully written.

March 2015; 275 pages

"Breakfast at Tiffany's" by Truman Capote

This is a bijou little novellette; it describes Holly Golightly, a young lady who lives in the apartment below the narrator. She is a penniless "society girl" who lives on men, some of whom she takes to bed, who pay for her to accompany them to parties etc. At the outset Holly is a mysterious and elusive girl who might have had a Hollywood screen test once. Slowly we learn more about her background and her past (though many of the revelations are contradictory and confusing) and we begin to fall in love with her multi-faceted character. Suddenly, all is snatched away and she disappears into a mysterious future.

Beautifully written.

September 2009, 100 pages

Also by Truman Capote and reviewed in this blog: 

• In Cold Blood

This review was written by the author of Motherdarling  and The Kids of God

"My favourite wife" by Tony Parsons

I haven't read this author before.

This is a slightly predictable story about a hot shot lawyer who goes to work in Shanghai; he is corrupted by the neo-colonial lifestyle in the Wild East and falls in love with a Chinese girl and has an affair with her after his wife and daughter have returned to Britain. The story is redeemed from the simplicity of a morality fable by the sincerity of the love shown by the lawyer to both wife and mistress, and by the strong character of the wife whose actions are in large part responsible for the lawyer's situation; in short there are genuine dilemmas posed here and no character is perfectly black or white.

The story is set against the colourful background of a town in which poor people are getting rich quick by exploiting other even poorer people. Genuine clashes of culture are explored and real economic dilemmas posed: is the capitalist way of enriching some while exploiting others right; should there be any limits on how a person exploits their talents to make money to survive (ie is prostitution OK?).

So it is a good story and even-handed in its treatment of most of the characters, so why didn't I enjoy it more? In some ways it was too well written: you could see the hallmarks of thorough research, the moral debates were too structured and too staged. One character's destruction was too obvious; Shanghai was too black and white a setting; the final pay off was too goody goody; the main character was too hot shot (given all the time off he kept sneaking one wondered how he ever got any work done at all let alone "he was billing more hours than anyone in the firm"). In short, the characters seemed like puppets against a theatrical background rather than flesh and blood. I never really believed.

August 2009, 405 pages

"On Green Dolphin Street" by Sebastian Faulks

I found this book in the library of the Hotel Majestic Palace in Sorrento and quicklyrealised it was the only readable thing there. Actually it was a fantastic find.

Charlie is a diplomat at the Washington Embassy at the start of 1960; he is falling apart through a combination of financial problems, a general world-weariness and depression, and the excessive amounts of alcohol he drinks to keep the blues away. Mary, his wife, falls for Frank, a journalist assigned to cover the Kennedy-Nixon election. As their affair develops she has to choose between her family life with her alcoholic husband and her children (sent to boarding school in England) and her dying mother and grieving father, and the passionate love she feels for Frank.

Faulks handles with brilliance the feel of the age, the children doing A-bomb drill, the jazz, the cold war (and the scenes in Moscow are stupendous). He writes about the experience of the two men in their respective wars, killing for their country, and their meeting in the mess that is Dien Bien Phu. He writes about grief and alcoholism and passionate love and bereavement and boarding school and, best of all, about the futility of existence seen through a depressive's eyes.

I wanted to scream at the end.

This was a wonderful book, my favourite of his that I have read so far. It certainly trumps Birdsong!

August 2009, 335 pages

"A fool's alphabet" by Sebastian Faulks

By the author of Birdsong.

By a strange coincidence I read this in the shadow of Vesuvius; the book starts "Vesuvius was erupting".

The book traces the first 41 years of the life of Pietro in an alphabet of places that are significant to him. These are not, as the rubric referred to in the book implies, places where Pietro has spent a night; they include A=Anzio where his father was injured which led to a meeting with his mother and M=Mons where his grandfather fought. Many of the places are also embedded in other places as reminiscences. However the demands of the form makes the narrative flicker backwards and forwards through time. It becomes difficult to work out key details about Pietro's life; sometimes this is enough to make you keep reading but at other times you are just plain confused. The overall impression (surely the author's intention) is that life is a random jumble of events, some of which have significance far beyond their apparent importance.

It does get you wondering what your biographical place alphabet would be. Here is a first attempt: Athens, Bedford, Cambridge, Downing (?), Eton, France, G, H, I, J, Kingston, L, Malvern, N, O, Paris, Q, Rome, S, T, U, V, Wootton, X, Y, Z. Some of these might need further work!

July 2009, 274 pages

"Testimony" by Anita Shreve

This novel begins explosively as a headteacher at a posh private school in Vermont watches a video of three of his male adult students having sex with an underage female student. He immediately thinks of expulsion and cover up although he is upset because he recognises and likes the male students involved. The book then explores, through the viewpoints and testimonies of each ofthe people involved, including the parents, the ramifications of this single act. As a fiction the book is excellent, "uncluttered" in Steph's phrase, and each different voice is captured so that you really get an impression of each of the characters. The book is sympathetic to each of the character's viewpoints, although the girl (totally not a victim) is clearly an utter airhead.

There are a number of moral issues left hanging. Given that the headteacher's own sex life is scarcely a model of rectitude (he slept with his wife the night that he met her at a party) it is difficult to understand why what the boys did was so totally awful that it led to such shame. Yes it was filmed and yes she was underage but older boys sleep with younger girls regularly and the sky does not always fall in. The other question is whether the school should have attempted to cover up: the consequences of what happens after the press find out are so awful that a cover up is the best thing. If this could have been just 'boys will be boys'it would have blown over.

A powerful and thought-provoking book, somewhat American in its love of details and the way it wrings the last drops of drama from the situation. Well-constructed although rather clearly constructed.

July 2009, 305 pages