Book Review- A Year In The Life Of TheManWhoFellAsleep, by Greg Stekelman

Greg Stekelman, AKA TheManWhoFellAsleep, got in touch recently asking if I would like to take part in a 'virtual book tour' to promote his new novel.   Today the tour stops off at Crinklybee- what follows is my review of A Year In The Life Of TheManWhoFellAsleep.....

January 1

The doorbell rang.  I looked at the alarm clock.  It was 3AM.  I closed my eyes and pretended I hadn't heard it.  It rang again.

I put on a pair of jeans and answered the door.  It was Jesus.  He looked terrible. His hair was unkempt and there were grey bags under his eyes.  He stank of whisky.

'You had best come in', I said.

So begins Greg Stekelman's very novel indeed first novel, which takes the form of a journal recording a year in the life of the eponymous narrator, a male bedsit-dweller of indeterminate age whose banal, drizzle-drenched North London existence is punctured at surprisingly regular intervals by mid-afternoon visits from celebrities, both living and dead.  The Son Of God doesn't make a reappearance until December 9th- but in the meantime we make the unlikely acquaintance of the likes of Simon and Garfunkel (who bicker tiresomely over which of them gets to have the last fondant fancy),  Walter Matthau (who reports that he is finding being dead to be quite agreeable, 'like living in Florida') and Morrissey (who calls unexpectedly and, in the absence of any alternative sustenance, is fed 'a plate of iron filings.  Later on, I had fun pulling him around the lounge with a giant magnet'.) 

The irresistable surreality of this last vignette is entirely typical of A Year In The Life, a supposed journal which at regular intervals wilfully throws off the strictures imposed by the diary format to veer off at wildly varying angles from a loose narrative (which centres around a shadowy figure named, appropriately enough, The Shadow, who reappears at intervals to torment our sleepy hero with puzzles, never entirely resolved, of an existential nature).  In the hands of a lesser writer these tangential interludes (typically explained as originating in newspaper cuttings found by the narrator during his daily aimless perigrinations around suburban north London) could prove jarring- come across as self-indulgent, even.  Fortunately however, Stekelman's perfect deadpan comic pitch (and equally flawless grasp of culture, both highbrow and popular), ensure that the journal entries, however wildly varying in subject matter, combine to sumptiously satisfying effect.

So- one moment we are being treated to a page of alternative Premiership predictions in which Mark Lawrenson is recast (entirely believably, as it happens) as a power-crazed and vengeful deity, the next we are confronted with a Kafkaesque tale, in which a twelve-year-old Buenos Aires boy is abducted by a giant ant from an alien planet, only to be released when it becomes apparent that there has been a case of mistaken identity-an error which is not surprising given that, as the alien explains with a sigh in his faltering Spanish, 'all you humans look the same to us, anyway'.  A little later, when the ManWhoFellAsleep travels back in time (you don't need to know how he manages this right now) and catches a glimpse of his own childhood, Stekelman shows the deft, arresting turn of phrase that raises his work above the throwaway comic and into truly literary realms- recounting how 'my family looked so solid and yet so fragile- a bomb that hasn't been informed it is going to explode'.

The ManWhoFellAsleep may traverse continents, even occasionally travel through time- but the action always returns to a prosaic north London, where unscrupulous Greek newsagents sell multipack cans of cola in singles, the Northern Line grinds to a halt due to a power failure at Goodge Street- oh, and polar bears roam the streets, terrorising the inhabitants with their innate withering sarcasm ('it's not irony- it's sarcasm').  It is a curious world indeed, where encounters with polar bears and dead film celebrities are deemed too commonplace to be worthy of lengthy discussion - but snatches of overheard conversations on the the narrator's beloved Underground (which, collected together in neat sets of ten, form another of the strands holding the work together) contain great, zeitgeist-defining truths:

'The Civil Service is full of reformed goths and indie-kids'.

'They say Woody Allen's new film is a return to form, but then they say that about every film he ever makes'.

'We went into that posh bar and had raspberry beer.  We were the only people there'.

These soundbites of Tube Gossip, like much in Stekelman's debut novel (it is based on his acclaimed website, sections of which have been serialised in London's Time Out), pull off the seemingly impossible trick of being at once bleak and life-affirming.   At its best, A Year In The Life touches some remarkable heights- calling to mind by turns the irrepressible comic invention of early Woody Allen, the existential dismay of Sartre's Nausea, the haughty misanthropism of John Kennedy Toole.  The work bears comparison, I will go as far as to say, with every caustically perceptive comic work written from the perspective of a misfit lowly clerk struggling with contemporary urban existence that you or I have ever read. 

Yes, this book really is that good- a cult masterpiece in the making, no less- and, if you know what is good for you, you will put a call through to your loved ones right now, demanding its presence in your Christmas stocking.  In fact- don't rely on your loved ones- they'll probably get mixed up as usual and buy you Frank Lampard's autobiography instead.  Just go out and buy the damn thing for yourself.   And then follow the rest of the ManWhoFellAsleep's virtual booktour here. (it's stopping off at blogs far and wide over the next, ooh, couple of weeks).    Thank you everyone, and goodnight.

Comments

[MQ]

Oooh, new look.

I love your book reviews. They always make me want to go out straight away and buy the book. This of course suggests that either you only review good books, or that your reviews are useless because they make every book seem good. So far experience suggests the former is true.

I suppose I should say something appropriate like, nice one wor Jonathan...

[looby]

I agree, they're excellent. They're patient, detailed and draw you into the work. A weaker critic would use a book just to talk about himself but you don't do that.

Definitely something to pursue if the bottom falls out of the reverse flange sprocket valve industry!

[abby]

Ooooh, I'd like it for Christmas please! I like to think that I couldn't possibly get hold of it in North America and that I am one of hundreds of expatriates demanding copies to be shipped to them by relatives, along with their Marmite and Lemsips. Nice book review, wor Jonathan!

[Jonathan]

Well I wouldn't want to be revealing the contents of the New York Christmas package Abby, but suffice to say that the bit in the review about 'misfit lowly clerks struggling with contemporary urban existence' was very much written with your literary tastes in mind. Don't be expecting an actual package before Christmas, though, the mailroom here at Crinklybee Towers is not exactly renowned for its efficiency (I don't believe the lowly clerks who work in there ever really got over the Parka Coat incident, you know...)