Material Witness

Seventy years of peace & the beauty of harmony and hope - we're #strongerin

At the age of 10, in 1982, I went on a school French trip to Normandy where we followed a well-trodden path around the region’s famous sites: the Basilica at Lisieux, the Bayeux Tapestry and of course the Normandy Beaches.

I have one specific memory of a trip that has otherwise faded in my mind.  

On an overcast afternoon, we visited the Pointe Du Hoc, where the Texas Rangers scaled the cliffs to a promontory where German gun batteries were pounding the Omaha and Utah beaches below.

That’s pretty exciting stuff for 10-year-olds, but that’s not what I remember. A small group of us followed the French teacher’s husband to the remains of the fortifications.

It was rumoured that the husband had fought in the war, possibly even in Normandy. We discussed what it must have been like for him on the beaches in June 1944, what it must be like for him to return.

We decided that we couldn’t ask him what his actual involvement had been, so we had no idea if he was there or not. But that didn’t matter. His presence personalized for us the rows of white gravestones we’d seen earlier in the afternoon in the cemetery close to Omaha Beach.

That gentleman – his name was Pitman – was of the last generation to fight in European wars. My father’s generation the first not to have to.

And that’s the primary reason I have voted for the United Kingdom to remain a part of the European Union. Whatever its faults, and heaven knows there is no shortage, the EU has achieved its first and most important objective: it has kept the peace among nations that have been at each other’s throats for two millennia. 

That’s not the only reason I voted Remain.

My life and, I believe, the life of our nation has been immeasurably enriched by our membership, by the free flow of people, ideas, trade and culture that it has enabled.

For the past nine years I have worked for two great European technology companies, the last four of which have been spent living in Madrid. I am delighted and proud to have among my friends people from pretty much all 28 nations: Spaniards, Portuguese, Finns, Germans, Bulgarians, Estonians and so  many more. We’re also blessed to have family throughout the continent – in Ireland, Wales, Germany and elsewhere.

To paraphrase the late Jo Cox: “While we celebrate our diversity, what surprises me time and time again … is that we are far more united and have far more in common with each other than things that divide us.”

So I’m thrilled that my 10-year-old daughter speaks fluent Spanish (and not just because she can help us through conversations we would otherwise become lost in) has Spanish friends and has had the opportunity to be immersed in another culture. (I’m less thrilled that as a result she now speaks English with an American accent, but that’s a different story). 

I’m excited for my 16-year-old daughter that when she leaves education she can work anywhere on this amazing and beautiful continent – Paris, Rome, Berlin, Helsinki…

I’m proud that my 14-year-old son understands these ideas, that he knows what it is to be European, that his horizons have been raised beyond little England, and that he knows he’s better for it.

I’m sorry that the Remain campaign has chosen to focus so much on the negative elements of its campaign: on the economic dangers of Brexit, although I’ve no doubt that they’re absolutely real, and that a vote to leave would be an act of financial insanity.

I’m sorry because I think the European Union is the most beautiful idea: Twenty eight nations working together to build a safer, stronger and more prosperous Europe for all of us. The challenges that face all of us today – economic, environmental, security – are global. We can’t meet them alone, only in harmony with our partners and friends on the continent.  

And if the EU is flawed – and how could it not be? – then Britain’s place is inside it working to make it better, to make it live up to the idea. Not to turn our backs on it and try instead to find our way back to some mythical British utopia.

I’m sorrier still the disgusting Leave campaign has chosen to focus its hateful, mendacious campaign and stirring up fear and resentment of immigrants.

I also believe passionately in the benefits of immigration – economic, cultural and otherwise. Europeans (and others) have made our country a better place, whether it be in our hospitals, our restaurants, our schools, our football teams (that’s you Dimitri Payet you beautiful free-kick-scoring-genius), our schools, our everything.

And with our position as the 5^th (or whatever) richest nation in the world, we shouldn’t be demonizing the terrified, impoverished refugees on Europe’s doorstep. We should be working with our European partners to help them find safety and security.

So when I see Nigel Farage standing in front of a poster rousing his rabble by exploiting the misery of men, women and children escaping death and destruction, it makes me so angry I can barely contain myself.

That’s not my Britain. I want no part of an isolationist, fascist, mean-spirited Britain in which populist demagogues rise to power on a manifesto of fear and hatred.

My Britain is a place of tolerance, openness and decency, a place of hope, charity, and optimism. It’s a refuge for the weak and impoverished.

It’s a vibrant, multi-cultural Britain at the political heart of our magnificent and diverse continent.

In.

REVIEW: The City of Mirrors by Justin Cronin

The City Of Mirrors, the final chapter in Justin Cronin's epic vampire trilogy of a post-Apocalypse world dominated by vampires, begins with the literary equivalent of the much-used television device: "Previously on the Passage..." What follows is a rather neat recap of the previous novel, The Twelve, written in an evangelical style that might be "The Gospel According to Justin."

This was useful for two reasons. First, The Twelve was published in 2012, and with an aging memory four years is a long time to wait for the next installment.  Second, and most importantly, I never really understood what happened in the novel in the first place. The Twelve was a chaotic, confusing book that failed to deliver on the terrifying promise of The Passage, which was exceptional. 

So the question I had on setting off into the final chapter was: will the third part rescue or kill the trilogy?  

Happily, it was the former. Cronin has delivered a dramatic, smart finale to his series full of great storylines, pulsating writing and an action-packed denouement. But this is more than an ordinary vampire story, it's a multi-layered exploration of what it is to be human and I found it endlessly fascinating and thought-provoking. And it's a surprising novel in many ways, taking a long but diverting path through the lives of young undergraduates at pre-virus Harvard as it filled the back story, flowering into a story of great love and devastating loss. 

The main thread of The City Of Mirrors takes place about 20 years after the events at the end of the previous when 'The Twelve', carriers of the virus and leaders of the vampiric hordes that have destroyed civilisation, are killed. The remnants of known humanity are living in the walled city of Kerrville Texas, and starting to feel sufficiently comfortable that the vampire threat has disappeared that they are setting up small communities outside the walls. Unbeknown to them, while The Twelve are no longer a threat, Patient Zero, the original carrier of the virus remains alive, active and vengeful in his Manhattan lair. 

 As Zero finally moves the novel evolves into one last great battle for survival for the Kerrville community, led by a familiar cast including Peter Jaxon and guided by the enigmatic Amy.

While the novel doesn't really come close to touching the iridescent brilliance of The Passage, I found it a more-than-satisfying conclusion to a trilogy I feared has lost its way, and more than once it kept me reading late into the night. Cronin ties up plentiful loose ends in a frenetic finish although not enough that there isn't scope for more from this world.  

REVIEW: Pleasantville by Attica Locke

What a reader takes from a book is often defined by the context in which they read it. In the case of Attica Locke's Pleasantville, a novel set against a Houston mayoral campaign influenced by the politics of race, it was impossible not to find parallels to the horribly toxic US Presidential campaign currently being played out.

The year is 1996. Bill Clinton has just been re-elected President, and in Houston the race for City Hall  is set for a run-off between Axel Hathorne, a former police chief aiming to be the City's first black leader, and Sandy Wolcott, the white female District Attorney. The electoral mathematics are tight but Hathorne can count on the support of district 259. That is Pleasantville, a pioneering black neighbourhood his father Sam has played an instrumental role in developing. 

When a young woman is found murdered and her presence in the neighbourhood is tied to Hathorne's campaign, his stranglehold over the voters begins to weaken. 

Enter Jay Porter, local attorney and former civil rights activists last seen on these pages in a review of Locke's brilliant 2010 debut Black Water Rising. Porter, mourning his wife while struggling to raise his two children and maintain a legal career he has diminishing appetite for, is contracted to defend Hathrone's nephew Neal who police believe to be mixed up with the girl. 

His advocacy for Neal, at first reluctantly offered but later zealously pursued, takes him on a dark and dangerous ride through the treacherous world where politics meets money and vested interest. 

Pleasantville is a tour de force. It is part political thriller, part courtroom drama and part murder mystery laced with nuanced social commentary. It excels in delivering riveting reading on all these fronts. But it is in the political sphere that it is at its most compelling, foreshadowing the controversial George W Bush election of 2000 and posing the question: What will money stop at to buy political outcomes? The answering is nasty and terrifying and in turn foreshadows the current ugly scenes in the US where a billionaire populist uses race and fear to propel himself to the brink of the White House. It articulates the loss of democracy as something belonging to the people, instead becoming a tradable commodity,  the exclusive preserve of the rich and powerful.

And at the heart of it all is Jay Porter. In 2010 I described him as 'one of the most memorable and complex characters I have read in some time'. He remains that and more. Forced into an welcome course of action and placed in physical danger, Porter responds with a combination of courage and determination, entirely at odds with his own vulnerability and desperation, and yet entirely credible. I don't know if Locke has future plans for Porter, but I hope so, just as I hope that someone brings him the small screen. Pleasantville would make a killer addition to the Netflix and HBO portfolio.

It's a quite brilliant book. Locke's narrative binds a number of different strands and ideas into one irresistible tale and a writing style that is tough and uncompromising drives it forward with power. If I read a better book this year, I'll count myself fortunate indeed.   

 

 

REVIEW: Two for Joy by James Melville-Ross

In the day-to-day grind of school runs, Spanish homework, cello practice and meal preparation in which all fruit and vegetables have to be disguised as Haribos, it's easy to lose sight of how beautiful and miraculous our children are. 

For most of us this is normal life, and to be honest, some days, it's not all that easy. So how would we cope if 'normal' life consisted of spending 10 hours a day just feeding you children? Or spending each night awake with them in our arms screaming with pain the cannot be controlled or soothed? Or simply wondering whether or not they will make it through another night?

Those have been some of the features of 'normal' life for James and Georgie Melville-Ross since their twins Alice and Tommy were born at 24 weeks in the summer of 2003. In Two for Joy, James tells the story of Alice and Tommy's premature entry into the world, their fierce early struggle for life and their growing pains coping with severe dystonic, quadriplegic cerebral palsy. He also tells his story, and that of Georgie, and their lives as the parents of severely disabled children. 

At this point I need to declare an interest. I've known James for about 15 years, first as a business acquaintance, later as a friend. It's difficult not to be a friend of James once you've known him a while; he's one of the most honest, decent and considerate people I've come across.

From our irregular meetings I knew something of the family's journey but as it turns out, I didn't know the half of it.  I didn't know that Alice had spent 259 days in hospital and Tommy longer. Nor that Tommy had the last rites read to him by a priest when three days old and that both twins experienced a number of close shaves in their formative weeks and since. The feeding regime chez Melville-Ross after the twins have returned home are quite extraordinary as are the couples' efforts to give the twins as normal a life as possible.

So the first thing to say about Two for Joy is that it is an incredible story, so well told that is truly as gripping as most of the murder mysteries I review on these pages. I read it in one sitting, for the simple reason that I couldn't stop once I'd started. There is no shortage of knife-edge drama, nor of the types of characters that every good story needs. If you ever find yourself in trouble and need somebody to scrap by your side, you couldn't do better than Georgie Melville-Ross. Similarly the medical staff at St. Thomas's and the assortment of carers and therapists who wonder in and out of the twins lives. And of course to the extraordinary children,  Alice and 'Titanium' Tommy whose battle against the odds is genuinely inspirational.  

And what of the narrator himself? Well, what really makes Two for Joy really are two things. First, while it will take you into some fairly dark territory and to times when the default setting for James and Georgie must have been exhausted despair, but James never lets the story languish in the shadows. There is always the next day, another therapy, a smile from one of the children, their closeness as a family. And so throughout, the story always manages to be bright and uplifting and often funny (see the episode of grandfather getting stuck with a child covered with sick in his arms, unable to move - likely not all that funny at the time).

And then there is James' honesty, mentioned earlier but revealed here in an entirely different context. Two for Joy answers the questions you would want to ask (both of James and of course yourself, because there's no reading this book without putting yourself in their shoes).  Such as: Is there not a moment when you thought it would be better that these children had died? How do you feel about the prospect of your life looking after severely disabled children? 

Of course there were also moments where James was less than proud of conduct and attitude. He tells the story of one occasion on which faced with the children refusing to feed, he kicks out in frustration at an open over door, smashing it and scaring Alice. 'What a man. What a prick,' he writes. 

It takes real courage to be that honest with yourself, never mind the world, but it makes the story real. James and Georgie are extraordinary in the way they have fought for and cared for their children, but they are not saints. The honesty is raw and emotional and gives the book a lot of power.  

People will take different lessons from the book. Some that every life counts and is worthy living and fighting which is emphatically proven by this tale, and the joy James experiences in his children and their development. Others will get a necessary dose of perspective on their daily grind. And nobody will come away without a tremendous sense of admiration for James, Georgie. Alice and Tommy.

This is a wonderful book and you should buy it and read it. (Unless you're one of those people I regularly buy books for at Christmas: you're all getting it anyway).      

 Two for Joy was published by John Blake on June 2. It is available from Amazon.