Out and out discrepancies

There has not been, and may not be for a while, an out gay man in the black jersey. As the national sport, supposedly the unifying nationalist pastime, rugby remains a bastion of macho exclusivity, gruff stoicism, masochistic endurance, “harden up”.

There are pioneers, of a kind. The referee Nigel Owens. Gareth Thomas. Canterbury’s inclusive Heroes side. But then the likes of Israel Folau rear their heads, condemning the entire LGBT community to hell is a notable example.

Nicholas Sheppard’s debut novel Broken Play considers the possibility of a gay All Black in the form of Alec Haudepin: a young star rising through provincial ranks, an outside consideration for the deified New Zealand team. Sandy-haired, attractive, his body powerful, a man of “flesh hardened into thick planes and ridges … almost cubic with muscle”.

Alec carries a “sombre undertow” — his sexuality kept hidden from even his parents, obliged to conform to the conservative mores of the sport he excels at it. Until he meets a troubled downstairs neighbour, pale pianoplaying Maxim and stirred feelings threaten to derail his ascent.

As Alec approaches the pinnacle, he looks back. Much of Broken Play is reminiscence. Of pubescent tumult, of rural small-town rigidity, of tricks learned to suppress emotions. He has been “deprived, as a youngster, of a natural entitlement of happiness . . . he’d simply borne it, because there had been no choice”. Sheppard deftly conveys the highly fragmented nature of masculinity and the tautness that balls inside Alec’s gut: between two loves, between accepting himself and being accepted by the world.

Sheppard’s style is ornate, traditional and well-considered. Of course, this being a novel about rugby, the prose is interrupted and knocked askew by dull lingo and technical data (“Knowing that he was weak pivoting on to his left foot, they forced Patrick to the dead-ball line, where he would have to make a clearing kick.” Eh?). There are passages of training and a sequence of games where Sheppard merely dumps his research on to the page, losing the lyrical quality with which he approaches Alec’s inner life or his tenderness with Maxim.

Sheppard seems more at home discussing Schubert and A Midsummer Night’s Dream than the hectic grapple of the rugby field. And this may be inevitable failure of Broken Play: that humane intimacy can never be reconciled with brutal and violent entertainment.