Misery and noir comedy
In the year when Bob Dylan won the Nobel Prize for Literature, this novel orbits Iz Herzl, globally acclaimed protest singer and folk icon, public hero and private failure. The 80- year- old is venerated for his blend of art and activism, but to the the three children he’s fathered from his shopping list of women, he’s more notable for his physical and emotional absence — a figure who leaves them in order to fly to Chile for six weeks while he sings about . . . children.
As Iz starts to dwindle in a leafy London suburb, the very disparate offspring tell his and their stories. There’s 16- year- old maths prodigy Rose, caregiver for her terminally ill younger brother Huddie. There’s the utterly estranged, 40 years older Joseph, emotionally and artistically half- fulfilled.
Depressed just by the synopsis? There are some laughs in Elton’s second fiction but they’re mostly rueful, savage and/ or contemptuous. Death by double defenestration is the nearest we get to a chuckle. A typical relationship ends with A spitting in B’s face or C realising D’s internet porn addiction. Loneliness rules. Curiously, though the content is dark, the tone is often light, almost offhand. A discreetly noir comedy glints intermittently.
It’s a narrative with individually vivid scenes: a bullying teacher is defied; a musical anthem is offensively ( and effectively) mocked; A
Taste of Honey is rendered — tastelessly. Feral assault, courtroom injustice, a squirmingly credible non- sex scene and a not wholly credible identity switch all nudge events towards a qualified resolution, where facts prove fragile. Some of the story’s parts work better than the whole.
Iz remains an enigma: a global icon and private vacuum who sees family relationships as frivolous. It’s teenage Rose whose voice most energises the novel: brave, grieving, brutally loyal.
A lot of famous musical names and titles get mentioned. They must be famous — even I’ve heard of them. We get a fair number of lyrics, which look as flat as lyrics often do on the page. Elton does a good job of evoking the egos, unreliable narrators and technical hassles of the songwriter’s existence. How do you convincingly rhyme “hierarchy” with “teriyaki”?
Some useful intimations of whom an icon “belongs” to and a fine cast of mainly unattractive groupies, roadies and toadies. A cool, unsettling but rather unresolved look at the frayed edges of fame.