A page turner for these times REVIEW
U.K. novelist’s compelling plot evokes real-life scandals
The Heart Broke In By James Meek Harper Collins Publishers Ltd. James Meek’s timing could hardly be better. His new novel, The Heart Broke In, with its gripping themes of public shaming, blackmail, pedophilia and journalistic treachery, happens to be hitting the shelves just as the BBC is rocked by two major scandals involving, well, all of the above.
Even on this side of the ocean, with the resignation of CIA director David Petraeus over an extramarital affair and the daily confessions of thievery at the Charbonneau Commission on corruption in Montreal, a novel about betrayal and moral failure seems remarkably timely.
But Meek, a British author and journalist with four acclaimed novels under his belt, including The People’s Act of Love, does not need any help from circumstance to make his newest offering compelling.
The story begins with rumours that protagonist Ritchie Shepherd, a former rock star who now produces a reality TV show called Teen Makeover, is having an affair with a minor. The rumour threatens to destroy not only Ritchie, but everyone associated with him.
Ritchie has been married for 10 years to a truly talented singer who made him famous (his own talent is shallow), and has two children.
He cares deeply for his family and is terrified of losing them, yet he has made a habit of infidelity. He is good-looking and rich and in the midst of his second successful career, but he is hitting middle age hard, and is racked with insecurities.
Ritchie has always lived in the shadow of his war-hero father, who was tortured and killed because he refused to betray one of his own men to enemy interrogators. Lately, he is also being eclipsed by his sister, Rebecca (Bec) Shepherd, a brilliant and beautiful researcher who is developing a vaccine against malaria.
Bec is a workaholic with a penchant for casual sex, but she is honest about it. She is focused on her research on parasites in Africa, and has no time, energy or interest in men for more than that.
But she does have a somewhat serious affair with a newspaper editor, who comes to despise her and seek revenge after she rejects his marriage proposal.
Bec then meets and falls in love with a former musician friend of Ritchie’s called Alex Comrie. Alex had left the music business for his second love, science, and he, too, is on the verge of a game-changing, life-saving discovery. Alex and Bec become the It-couple of the science world, and again, Ritchie finds himself nudged from the spotlight.
He needs a new project, something with more gravitas than Teen Makeover, so he decides to make a documentary about his father’s killer. The man has done his time in prison and agrees to do the film, but only if Ritchie will forgive him, and get his sister and mother to do the same.
As it becomes clear that Ritchie will eventually be exposed for the complete moral failure he is, his need to make this film, in which he will star as the proud but forgiving son of a murdered hero, grows.
Bec, however, has no intention of forgiving the murderer, and so she becomes an obstacle on Ritchie’s road to redemption.
And Bec, meanwhile, has her own issues about living up to her father’s heroic sacrifice. In Africa, Bec has discovered a hitherto unknown parasite, which she names after her father. She believes the parasite can provide protection against malaria, and actually allows it to flourish in her own body to test its effects. The parasite is causing her to go blind, yet she persists with her unorthodox experiment.
Meek is sometimes comically eccentric with his symbolism and plot twists (the killer writes a poem about parasites and reads it to Bec, for example, without any knowledge of her research). And most of the characters, though convincingly rendered, seem to have either cartoonishly exciting careers (rock stars or war heroes or brilliant scientists) or comically insignificant jobs (one makes animal sculptures out of driftwood and seashells, another is a designer of dog clothing).
But these are amusing conceits on Meek’s part, rather than flaws, and even if we are sometimes being hit on the head with them, the overall effect is to delight. Meek has something important to say about mortality and morality with this novel, and he manages to explore these serious topics while dancing us expertly through a Hollywoodready plot. (Meek’s third novel, The People’s Act of Love, is currently being made into a film by Johnny Depp, and I expect the rights to this one will be quickly snapped up.)
Meek’s novel brings to mind Jonathan Franzen’s work, although Meek’s writing style is less dense and rich, more fast-paced and lighthearted. There is, however, great beauty to Meek’s pared-down prose and authenticity to his characters.
His work prompts the reader to reflect on loyalty, freedom of religion and heroism, and more, without ever preaching or losing the narrative rhythm. What’s remarkable about that is, Meek’s narrative rhythm is so raucous, it will have you greedily devouring this 550-page book in a weekend.