I was handed this book on the way to the gym. Wandering
through sun-dappled cloisters, the sounds of birdsong and cricket
practise enveloping me, I thumbed idly through the first chapter.
Nothing could quite prepare me for the hard-hitting nature of
this novel. By the third page I am deeply involved in lesbian sex
with a hooker in a graveyard. As if that wasn’t shocking enough, by page ten I am
trying desperately to hold my own in a world of strobe-lit flings
and comedowns from drugs I have never heard of, described in
language I never knew existed. I totally and utterly fail. Having thrown the Oxford English Dictionary into the nearest
skip in a rage of apoplexy at its inadequacy, however, I resolve
to plough on nonetheless. So, enthroned on the left-hand exercise
bike in LA fitness, I follow foul-mouthed, fouler-tempered Millie
O’Reilly from solitary drinking binges to molesting
teenagers in club toilets, on a trail of selfdestruction
punctuated by passages of amazingly evocative description. One
such passage depicting an ecstasy-enhanced thunderstorm over the
Merseyside docks is spellbinding; those expressing the ineffable
joy of voiding one’s bowels when coked up, less so. Alluringly promising "a female perspective on the harsh
truth of growing up in today’s Britain", the author,
though sufficiently compassionate, fails to create a character
which those eager to discover this new perspective can identify
with. Arena may have called Walsh the female Irvine Welsh but she
falls far short of this title in Brass. Insufficient depth is
given to the emotional build-up to Millie’s odyssey of
self-abuse, and her eventual break-down, though inevitable
enough, seems to come when the author’s, rather than the
heroine’s, stamina fails. That said, however, Walsh presents a shocking portrait of the
underbelly of Liverpool Cathedral’s area; an understanding
of which creeps up slowly but suddenly overpowers, much like,
Walsh assures me, a particularly pure Ecstasy tablet.ARCHIVE: 5th week TT 2004
Helen Walsh – Brass
