Reviews

Something to read while the women of this world pass you by’ is the first novel by brothers Josh Jones and Benny Jones. It tells the story of a dejected younger brother attempting to rise to fame as an author. Through his writings and erratic lifestyle the book explores the existential crisis, class warfare and the life of an artist.

Review by Helen Watts at Melrose Books in Cambridge;

Something to read is a rollercoaster ride of vitriol and rebellion, a ‘barbaric yawp’ at the system in which we live and an homage to the life of the artist. There is a conscious literary inheritance from the fringe movements of the past and the writers that led them from Kerouac and Ginsberg to Fante and Bukowski. This is fast paced, almost spontaneous prose with deliberate social comment in the form of a rejection of the life of the worker and a recognition of the randomness of human existence coupled with a constant strain of existentialism.

The work is in theory post modernist in its construction with the notions of a text within a text within a text but its themes are unashamedly modernist, more reminiscent of Berryman and Camus than Baudrillard. The narrative is structured around the misadventures of its main protagonist, Sourires, who lives a life of reckless abandon and debauchery in the shadow of his brother the celebrated writer, Pau. The novel opens with a hilarious scene in which Sourires delivers a deliciously self-serving and bombastic speech at his brother’s engagement party, declaring in his own inimitable style his intention to embark on a career in writing himself. So begins Sourires’ writing career. His brother’s agent, at his brother’s behest, agrees to pay him in advance and Sourires submits a couple of stories before his inspiration runs dry. The stories are included within the narrative adding a certain metatextuality to the work but one has the sense from the start that Sourires has a conscious desire to fail. Sourires’ life is a labyrinth of parties and sexual misadventures and his misanthropic outlook on life gives the work an irresistibly bleak strand of humour. The repartee between Sourires and his equally messed up friends has moments of rapier wit and it is difficult not to grow fond of him and his miscreant friends. There are no normal relationships in the narrative, every character is possessed of a veritable maze of idiosyncrasies and Sourires' steadfast refusal to engage in normative social behaviour ensures that the majority of his social encounters end in disaster.

This is not a continuous narrative as such, more of a running commentary or journal. The essence of the work is in its style and delivery. The prose is littered with metaphors and obscure references and the dialogue is never anything but razor sharp. The work has all the makings of cult status. This is not fodder for the mainstream, it is more of a gastronomic feast for the discerning few, those of us who hide behind a well thumbed copy of Gogol’s Dead Souls or Sartre’s Nausea like it’s a safe place rather than those who buy the latest bestseller with little or no reflection. I am not saying that Something to read is on a par with these works but its appeal lies in its consciousness of the suffering of the artist, even as it satirises it. Sourires is a classic character, a vocal misanthrope, and quite often a complete bastard, he is an anti-hero in the original sense of the word.

In conclusion, this is an outstanding piece of writing. Its characters are brimful of personality and constantly throw out pearls of wisdom with drunken elegance. Sourires, as I’ve said, is a unique personality and the most engaging character I have come across in a long time. The prose is near poetic, littered with metaphors and relentless in its delivery of its own wry misanthropic brand of social commentary. This is an urban novel, the city is in itself one of the principle characters and it is described with loving detail in all of its squalor and misery. I have little to criticise. This is not a work that will appeal to everyone, but it will be loved by those to whom it does appeal. It is rare to come across this kind of writing in our literary world of Potter’s and Da Vinci Codes and reading Frown Land, for this reader, was like the burning kick of a good scotch after weeks of bread and water.