Darkmans by Nicola Barker

The Barnes & Noble Review

When was the last time you read a book that was so inventive that it left you breathless, literally, and also somewhat frightened? A book that used language with such intrepid flourish it humbled you to learn that the written word could do this, this to you. Well, get prepared for a full-on assault on your senses with Nicola Barker's wildly imaginative Darkmans.

Barker is the acclaimed writer of six novels and two short story collections. Her novels have traversed such diverse themes as pedophilia and the depredations of celebrity. Clear, her previous book, written in just over three months, was a reaction to the public hounding of illusionist David Blaine.

Beginning September 2003, Blaine spent 44 days without food inside a transparent plastic box suspended in the air near London's Tower Bridge. While Blaine has routinely performed such death-defying stunts, this one became the subject of widespread public derision. People threw stuff at him (well, not him, since he was inside the box), and the paparazzi had a field day photographing the spectacle.

Barker, on her part, has always sided with the underdog. Apart from her sympathy for Blaine, she has also expressed an interest in the Jade Goody–Shilpa Shetty affair. For the uninitiated, Goody, a British celebrity, was accused of racist barbs against Shetty, an Indian actor, on the hit TV series Celebrity Big Brother in the U.K. The case received international headlines, and Goody was castigated in the press for her treatment of Shetty.

Through her writing, Barker has sought to denounce the holier-than-thou attitude that the media and the public at large adopted toward Blaine and Goody. In this respect, Clear was a personal work, driven by her need to analyze an issue that "spoke volumes about where we were as a nation, culturally, politically and emotionally."

Barker has never been one for straight storytelling formats. She likes to flex her narrative muscle and nearly always comes out tops. Her latest, the 2007 Man Booker Prize–shortlisted Darkmans, is a complex work, part modern fable, part historical myth. Embellished with Barker's swashbuckling style, it is a work that's gripping, smart, and genuinely funny.

The setting is the town of Ashford in Kent, known far and wide for a passenger station built for the Channel Tunnel. But behind the ritzy facade of change lie the struggle and crushed hopes of the town's locals, who lost a campaign to resist "modernity." Progress has kicked Daniel Beede, who spearheaded the campaign, "squarely in the balls."

The novel begins with a chance meeting at a café between Beede and his son Kane, two people who cannot see eye to eye on anything. As we divine that all is not normal in their relationship, Barker takes us into what made Beede the man he is -- broken and devoid of the passion he once held for life.

Beede is now the laundry supervisor at the local hospital, and ironically, his drug-dealing son relies on the hospital staff to keep his operations running. Kane and Beede don't just fail to communicate; their discord runs much deeper. Kane's mother and Beede separated a long time ago, and the lady died after a protracted illness. Kane has striven to be everything that Beede isn't, and to do everything his father advises him against.

Soon, amid the storm of language -- people's thoughts are evoked in fits and starts, so that the narrative rushes along at a phenomenal pace, without pause -- the central character of the book is introduced: he is a 15th-century jester at the court of Edward IV, John Scogin, who enters Beede's world when a mysterious stranger sends the desperate man a copy of Scogin's Jests. Scogin is the "dark man" who, we will soon see, hovers above the book like a phantom.

In addition to Beede and Kane and the curious figure of Scogin, Darkmans flaunts a sprawling cast of characters. There is Elen, a chiropodist who is ostensibly treating Beede but has a mysterious persona that is terribly attractive to Kane. There is Elen's husband, Dory, who traverses the novel in a haze of mental illness. He suffers from acute sleeping disorders, and Barker brings him to life in exacting prose.

Then there is Kane's girlfriend, Kelly Broad, who comes from an illustrious family of thieves and, presently, is being helped by a Romanian who is actually a Kurd. That's Gaffar Celik, Kane's unwitting Man Friday, who speaks in a mix of Turkish and English.

With Gaffar especially, Barker introduces a device that writers may want to emulate in future. She lets Gaffar's eloquent Turkish intermingle with his atrocious English, and to convey this, she uses a different ornate font for Turkish. The effect is a smooth transition between the two languages that manages to indicate which is which -- without confusion, and with a real feel for how immigrants straddle disparate tongues. Similarly, the thoughts of various characters are presented in italics throughout, and the text switches between straight storytelling and jumpy narration.

A review can only reveal the tip of this 800-page iceberg. Suffice it to say that the reader, like the characters, is in the grip of unearthly affairs, and the ghost of Scogin has conspired to bind us all in a web of deepening intrigue. But why Scogin? Not much is known about this man, who also served as jester in Richard III's court. Barker has said in an interview that in spite of his time, Scogin appeared to her as a very modern creature, "a cruel, ruthless and terrifying opportunist."

Indeed, it is this image of Scogin that one takes away from this book, a ghost bent on wreaking havoc in the lives of the characters. Kane discovers he is using words he never knew existed and openly discussing things, like his mother's death, that he thought he had long buried. Kelly is chuffed to learn that she may be a descendant of Andrew Board, the renowned physician and writer who compiled -- what else? -- Scogin's Jests. And Dory goes about performing tricks that are eerily, and laughably, familiar to Scogin's.

The amazing thing is that Barker's sleight-of-hand works at several levels. Apart from the plot and the writing, it is her daring play with words -- a feat achieved with original skill -- that unshackles the text from the confines of the page and bestows on it an intense, fiery, almost dangerous energy. --Vikram Johri

Vikram Johri is a freelance writer in New Delhi. He blogs at http://patrakaar2b.blogspot.com.

From the Publisher

Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, Darkmans is an exhilarating, extraordinary examination of the ways in which history can play jokes on us all... If history is just a sick joke which keeps on repeating itself, then who exactly might be telling it, and why? Could it be John Scogin, Edward IV's infamous court jester, whose favorite pastime was to burn people alive -- for a laugh? Or could it be Andrew Boarde, Henry VIII's physician, who kindly wrote John Scogin's biography? Or could it be a tiny Kurd called Gaffar whose days are blighted by an unspeakable terror of -- uh -- salad? Or a beautiful, bulimic harpy with ridiculously weak bones? Or a man who guards Beckley Woods with a samurai sword and a pregnant terrier?

Darkmans is a very modern book, set in Ashford (a ridiculously modern town), about two very old-fashioned subjects: love and jealousy. It's also a book about invasion, obsession, displacement, and possession, about comedy, art, prescription drugs, and chiropody. And the main character? The past, which creeps up on the present and whispers something quite dark -- quite unspeakable -- into its ear.

The third of Nicola Barker's narratives of the Thames Gateway, Darkmans is an epic novel of startling originality.

The New York Times - Sylvia Brownrigg

…to suggest that this dazzling, complex novel has anything quite as conventional as a plot would be misleading. There are plenty of mysteries…but Barker enjoys the journey of her storytelling too much to worry about when she'll arrive at her destination. So great are her humor, wit and erudition that she's able to charm us into sharing her tolerance of uncertainty and confusion. And despite her fondness for narrative detours, Barker knows how to keep things moving.

Product Details

• ISBN: 0061575216
  
• ISBN-13: 9780061575211
• Format: Paperback, 848pp
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
• Pub. Date: November 2007
• Sales Rank: 55,169

• Read an Excerpt
• Read a Sample Chapter

Read an Excerpt

Chapter One

Kane dealt prescription drugs in Ashford; the Gateway to Europe. His main supplier was Anthony Shilling, a Waste Management Coordinator at the Frances Fairfax. Shilling was a quiet, Jamaican gentleman (caucasian—his family originally plantation owners) who came to England in the early seventies, settled in Dalston, London, and fell in love with a woman called Mercy, whose own family hailed from The Dominican Republic.

Mercy was British born. Anthony and Mercy moved to South Kent in 1976, where they settled and raised four daughters, one of whom was a professor of Political Sciences at Leeds University and had written a book called Culture Clashes: Protest Songs and The Yardies (1977–1999).

Kane was waiting for Anthony at the French Connection; a vulgar, graceless, licensed 'family restaurant' (a mammoth, prefabricated hut, inside of which a broad American roadhouse mentality rubbed up against all that was most intimate and accessible in Swiss chalet-style decor) on the fringes of the Orbital Park, one of Ashford's three largest—and most recent—greenfield industrial development sites.

The restaurant had been thoughtfully constructed to service the adjacent Travel Inn, which had, in turn, been thoughtfully constructed to service the through-traffic from the Channel Tunnel, much of which still roared carelessly past, just beyond the car park, the giant, plastic, fort-themed children's play area, the slight man-made bank and the formless, aimless tufts of old meadow and marshland with which the Bad Munstereifel Road (named after Ashford's delightful, medieval German twin) wasneatly—if inconclusively—hemmed.

It was still too early for lunch on a Tuesday morning, and Kane (who hadn't been to bed yet) was slouched back in a heavily varnished pine chair, sucking ruminatively on a fresh Marlboro, and staring quizzically across the table at Beede, his father.

Beede also worked at the Frances Fairfax, where he ran the laundry with an almost mythical efficiency. Beede was his surname. His first name—his Christian name—was actually Daniel. But people knew him as Beede and it suited him well because he was small, and hard, and unquestionably venerable (in precisely the manner of his legendarily bookish eighth-century precursor).

Beede knew all about Kane's business dealings, and didn't actually seem to give a damn that his only son was cheerfully participating in acts of both a legally and ethically questionable nature. Yet Anthony Shilling's involvement was—in Beede's opinion—an altogether different matter. He just couldn't understand it. It deeply perplexed him. He had liked and admired both Tony and Mercy for many years. He considered them 'rounded'; a respectable, comfortable, functional couple. Mercy had been a friend of Kane's mother, Heather (now deceased—she and Beede had separated when Kane was still a toddler). Beede struggled to comprehend Tony's motivation. He knew that it wasn't just a question of money. But that was all he knew, and he didn't dare (or care) to enquire any further.

'Beede.' Kane suddenly spoke. Beede glanced up from his secondhand Penguin orange-spine with a quick frown. Kane took a long drag on his cigarette.

'Well?'

Beede was irritable.

Kane exhaled at his leisure.

'What the fuck are you doing?'

Kane's tone was not aggressive, more lackadaisical, and leavened by its trademark tinge of gentle mockery.

Beede continued to scowl. 'What does it look like?'

He shook the book at Kane—by way of an answer—then returned to it, huffily.

Kane wasn't in the slightest bit dismayed by the sharpness of Beede's response.

'But why the fuck,' he said, 'are you doing it here?'

Beede didn't even look up this time, just indicated, boredly, towards his coffee cup. 'Should I draw you a picture?'

Kane smiled.

He and Beede were not close. And they were not similar, either. They were different in almost every conceivable way. Beede was lithe, dark, strong-jawed, slate-haired and heavily bespectacled. He seemed like the kind of man who could deal with almost any kind of physical or intellectual challenge—

It's the radiator. If you want to try and limp back home with it, I'll need a tub of margarine, a litre of water and a packet of Stimorol; but I won't make you any promises . . .

No. Nietzsche didn't hate humanity. That's far too simplistic. What Nietzsche actually said was, 'Man is something which must be overcome.'

To all intents and purposes Daniel Beede was a model citizen. So much so, in fact, that in 1983 he'd been awarded the Freedom of the Borough as a direct consequence of his tireless work in charitable and community projects during the previous two decades.

He was Ashford born and bred; a true denizen of a town which had always—but especially in recent years—been a landmark in social and physical re-invention. Ashford was a through-town, an ancient turnpike (to Maidstone, to Hythe, to Faversham, to Romney, to Canterbury), a geographical plughole; a place of passing and fording (Ash-ford, formerly Essetesford, the Eshe being a tributary of the River Stour).

Yet in recent years Beede had been in the unenviable position of finding his own home increasingly unrecognisable to him (Change; My God! He woke up, deep in the night, and could no longer locate himself. Even the blankets felt different—the quality of light through his window—the air). Worse still, Beede currently considered himself to be one of the few individuals in this now flourishing 'Borough of Opportunity' (current population c.102,000) to have been washed up and spat out by the recent boom.

Prior to his time (why not call it a Life Sentence?) in the hospital laundry, Beede had worked—initially at ground level . . .

Read a Sample Chapter

Chapter One

Kane dealt prescription drugs in Ashford; the Gateway to Europe. His main supplier was Anthony Shilling, a Waste Management Coordinator at the Frances Fairfax. Shilling was a quiet, Jamaican gentleman (caucasian—his family originally plantation owners) who came to England in the early seventies, settled in Dalston, London, and fell in love with a woman called Mercy, whose own family hailed from The Dominican Republic.

Mercy was British born. Anthony and Mercy moved to South Kent in 1976, where they settled and raised four daughters, one of whom was a professor of Political Sciences at Leeds University and had written a book called Culture Clashes: Protest Songs and The Yardies (1977–1999).

Kane was waiting for Anthony at the French Connection; a vulgar, graceless, licensed 'family restaurant' (a mammoth, prefabricated hut, inside of which a broad American roadhouse mentality rubbed up against all that was most intimate and accessible in Swiss chalet-style decor) on the fringes of the Orbital Park, one of Ashford's three largest—and most recent—greenfield industrial development sites.

The restaurant had been thoughtfully constructed to service the adjacent Travel Inn, which had, in turn, been thoughtfully constructed to service the through-traffic from the Channel Tunnel, much of which still roared carelessly past, just beyond the car park, the giant, plastic, fort-themed children's play area, the slight man-made bank and the formless, aimless tufts of old meadow and marshland with which the Bad Munstereifel Road (named after Ashford's delightful, medieval German twin) wasneatly—if inconclusively—hemmed.

It was still too early for lunch on a Tuesday morning, and Kane (who hadn't been to bed yet) was slouched back in a heavily varnished pine chair, sucking ruminatively on a fresh Marlboro, and staring quizzically across the table at Beede, his father.

Beede also worked at the Frances Fairfax, where he ran the laundry with an almost mythical efficiency. Beede was his surname. His first name—his Christian name—was actually Daniel. But people knew him as Beede and it suited him well because he was small, and hard, and unquestionably venerable (in precisely the manner of his legendarily bookish eighth-century precursor).

Beede knew all about Kane's business dealings, and didn't actually seem to give a damn that his only son was cheerfully participating in acts of both a legally and ethically questionable nature. Yet Anthony Shilling's involvement was—in Beede's opinion—an altogether different matter. He just couldn't understand it. It deeply perplexed him. He had liked and admired both Tony and Mercy for many years. He considered them 'rounded'; a respectable, comfortable, functional couple. Mercy had been a friend of Kane's mother, Heather (now deceased—she and Beede had separated when Kane was still a toddler). Beede struggled to comprehend Tony's motivation. He knew that it wasn't just a question of money. But that was all he knew, and he didn't dare (or care) to enquire any further.

'Beede.' Kane suddenly spoke. Beede glanced up from his secondhand Penguin orange-spine with a quick frown. Kane took a long drag on his cigarette.

'Well?'

Beede was irritable.

Kane exhaled at his leisure.

'What the fuck are you doing?'

Kane's tone was not aggressive, more lackadaisical, and leavened by its trademark tinge of gentle mockery.

Beede continued to scowl. 'What does it look like?'

He shook the book at Kane—by way of an answer—then returned to it, huffily.

Kane wasn't in the slightest bit dismayed by the sharpness of Beede's response.

'But why the fuck,' he said, 'are you doing it here?'

Beede didn't even look up this time, just indicated, boredly, towards his coffee cup. 'Should I draw you a picture?'

Kane smiled.

He and Beede were not close. And they were not similar, either. They were different in almost every conceivable way. Beede was lithe, dark, strong-jawed, slate-haired and heavily bespectacled. He seemed like the kind of man who could deal with almost any kind of physical or intellectual challenge—

It's the radiator. If you want to try and limp back home with it, I'll need a tub of margarine, a litre of water and a packet of Stimorol; but I won't make you any promises . . .

No. Nietzsche didn't hate humanity. That's far too simplistic. What Nietzsche actually said was, 'Man is something which must be overcome.'

To all intents and purposes Daniel Beede was a model citizen. So much so, in fact, that in 1983 he'd been awarded the Freedom of the Borough as a direct consequence of his tireless work in charitable and community projects during the previous two decades.

He was Ashford born and bred; a true denizen of a town which had always—but especially in recent years—been a landmark in social and physical re-invention. Ashford was a through-town, an ancient turnpike (to Maidstone, to Hythe, to Faversham, to Romney, to Canterbury), a geographical plughole; a place of passing and fording (Ash-ford, formerly Essetesford, the Eshe being a tributary of the River Stour).

Yet in recent years Beede had been in the unenviable position of finding his own home increasingly unrecognisable to him (Change; My God! He woke up, deep in the night, and could no longer locate himself. Even the blankets felt different—the quality of light through his window—the air). Worse still, Beede currently considered himself to be one of the few individuals in this now flourishing 'Borough of Opportunity' (current population c.102,000) to have been washed up and spat out by the recent boom.

Prior to his time (why not call it a Life Sentence?) in the hospital laundry, Beede had worked—initially at ground level . . .