Book Jacket

 

rank 3002
word count 80451
date submitted 12.02.2009
date updated 12.02.2009
genres: Fiction
classification: universal
complete

By Your Side

Jackie Gay

'It's hard to find a word out of place or a phrase that jars... an absolute pleasure.' (Ben Mason, Conville & Walsh)

 

It's 1978 and Sheralee Sawyer is dazzled by the stage lights of the Birmingham Hippodrome. She meets Col, the roguish lighting technician and discovers the secret tunnel between the theatre's backstage area and the British Legion next door. However Sheralee is unable to keep her home life and boyfriend, Owen, separate from her explorations. Owen has made friends with the soldiers in the Legion. It's the eve of Thatcherism, and by the end of the first chapter no one is sure of what future lies out there for them. The Falklands, the urban 'underclass' , the traveller and festival communities, the 80s stock market crash, soldiers returning from war - this novel covers unwritten ground which resonates uncannily with contemporary events. Travel with Sheralee and Owen as they negotiate the long shadows cast by their own and their families' pasts, including Owen's grandfather's First World War history, which Owen tries to disentangle. Journey through the tunnels which connect the disparate spaces and link lives and destinies together in surprising and invigorating ways. Jackie Gay's writing 'possesses tenacious energy and moments of pure, languid lyricism' (Janice Galloway). 'Gripping and mysterious, as good fiction should be' (Jonathan Coe)

 
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tags

birmingham, contemporary, fiction, love, theatre, travel, travellers, war

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5 comments

 

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Kenneth Edward Lim wrote 441 days ago

Jackie,
"By Your Side" is an excursion into the wonderful realm of human relationships. You delivered the goods through a clever use of realistic dialogue and energetic prose. I couldn't help but smile at Sheralee's flirtations with Owen, Col, Barry and so on down the list. The developments under the lights of the Hippodrome serve as a remninder that life is after all a stage on which we all unwittingly perform, so why not do it with Sheralee's feistiness?

Kenneth Edward Lim
The North Korean

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Kenneth Edward Lim wrote 441 days ago

Jackie,
"By Your Side" is an excursion into the wonderful realm of human relationships. You delivered the goods through a clever use of realistic dialogue and energetic prose. I couldn't help but smile at Sheralee's flirtations with Owen, Col, Barry and so on down the list. The developments under the lights of the Hippodrome serve as a remninder that life is after all a stage on which we all unwittingly perform, so why not do it with Sheralee's feistiness?

Kenneth Edward Lim
The North Korean

report abuse
Kenneth Edward Lim wrote 441 days ago

Jackie,
"By Your Side" is an excursion into the wonderful realm of human relationships. You delivered the goods through a clever use of realistic dialogue and energetic prose. I couldn't help but smile at Sheralee's flirtations with Owen, Col, Barry and so on down the list. The developments under the lights of the Hippodrome serve as a remninder that life is after all a stage on which we all unwittingly perform, so why not do it with Sheralee's feistiness?

Kenneth Edward Lim
The North Korean

report abuse
Andrew S wrote 959 days ago

This is great stuff, Jackie. On my shelf.

The prose is super-smooth with an appropriately conversational, almost chatty quality. The sense of time and place feels real without ever being OTT - it's just there in the background, adding colour and depth without getting in the way of the story. The dialogue rings true with enough vernacular/period turns of phrase to root the reader in the moment. The conversations really add energy to the scenes with some lovely, deftly comic - and often very touching - exchanges. Good characterisation - clear and distinct and three dimensional.

In short, a very polished, well-conceived, confidently delivered piece. If the site wasn't one big orgy of mutual back-scratching this would be on the desk. Unfortunately it is, so....

The only thing I didn't really like was your use of quotations at the beginning of ch1. I'm not a big fan of this technique - it always feels slightly too knowing, a bit of a writerly indulgence - but, if they are used, I think the people being quoted should bear some relevance to the work that follows. While the Rossetti/Churchill quotes are apt in themselves they feel very out of place amongst all the teenage goings-on, 1970s cultural refs etc. If you want to use a quote, maybe use someone more contemporary/relevant to the period/subject matter? Just a thought.

Thanks and best of luck with this. It really is a lovely piece of work.

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David Roberts wrote 1115 days ago

I thought this was a really sensitive and authentic recreation of the past, and also an exciting and convincing account of how and why the past gets explored. Jackie Gay's dialogue smells of life and her sense of period is very true. Best of all, her sense of the misunderstandings, the minor fallings out that divide people, makes her a sharp but very compassionate writer who should have a much wider audience.

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