Book about writers and the word itself

Steven Boykey Sidley has produced another mesmerising read

STEVEN Boykey Sidley has been compared with authors such as Ian McEwan, Philip Roth, Martin Amis, Raymond Carver and Richard Power.

I prefer to think of him as one of the most talented authors writing today.

For Sidley, plot isn’t the start of a novel – a character is. He tells me that if you create your character, the story will develop. Not for him the white boards and tortured Post-its of where a book is going, but a story about people who inhabit his book.

He took a bold step with Leaving Word. Right at the beginning of the book the main character, Joelle Jesson, a respected editor who’s just been retrenched by her quirky boss Buddy Rappaport, must deal with his being found inexplicably dead at his desk.

Buddy is a newish feature in the august publishing house where Joelle has practised her craft. He’s come in from Silicon Valley, part of the new media wave that doesn’t necessarily see the value of the printed book.

In many ways he’s the antithesis of Joelle, but in other ways she rather fancies him. His death is perplexing, and throws together a group of unlikely characters.

There’s his brother Duke, an artist who forms a strange relationship with Joelle, and a detective who is writing a crime story.

Corelli is a wonderful character, more interested in getting Joelle to critique his book and get it into a publishable state than in considering that Buddy’s death might not be from natural causes.

Throw in a somewhat demented writer, Thron, labouring through what the reader swiftly comes to realise is a bunch of alcohol and drug-induced garbage, and his fantasies about meeting Joelle, or confronting Buddy, and you have a band of characters each so perfectly formed that they step into your life.

Sidley has once again brought a story and a city to life through the people who inhabit it. He also manages to have his characters make sidesteps that illuminate their lives.

Joelle and her sister will find out a family secret from their father, who is old and still deeply mourning their mother, who died young. The telling of the story may unburden him, but it leaves Joelle time to ponder what the truth means to her, how a changed memory might redefine her.

There’s a thread running through the book about what it is like to be a writer. Is the book dead? Does it matter? A book of stunning beauty and humanity.

GIVEAWAY! We have two copies of Leaving Word to give readers, courtesy of MF Books Joburg. Email your name to liesl.vanderschyff@inl.co.za

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