LITERARY FICTION
CHARLIE CHAPLIN’S LAST DANCE by Fabio Stassi (Portobello £12.99 £11.49)
ON Christmas Eve, 1972, Death calls upon the 83year-old Charlie Chaplin and tells him his time is up. But the former star isn’t ready to go just yet. He wants to see his young son Christopher grow up a little more first. In a cinematic nod to Ingmar Bergman’s Seventh Seal, where a knight plays chess with Death to decide his fate, Chaplin makes a deal with the Grim Reaper: if he can make Death laugh, he can stay alive another year.
As one year’s stay of execution follows another, Chaplin relates his life story, but it’s an alternative autobiography, playing fast and loose with facts, an episodic tale involving circus performers and a hitherto unrevealed history of the invention of the movie camera.
Prize-winning author Fabio Stassi is highly regarded in his native Italy, but the narrative here is often irritatingly random. Passages where it settles down and deals with the early days of moviemaking provide a welcome respite.
That said, Stassi captures brilliantly Chaplin’s authentic voice and he’s good at poignancy, so the final pages, when the Little Tramp’s time is finally up, are very moving.
GHOST MOON by Ron Butlin (Salt £8.99 £8.49)
FLIPPING between t he present and 1950, Ghost Moon tells the story of Maggie, now suffering from dementia, but at the age of 30 thrown out of her Edinburgh home by her disapproving parents because she is three months pregnant by a man she hardly knew.
In the present, the story’s seen through the eyes of her son Tom, who doesn’t know the secret of his birth or of Maggie’s early struggle to build a life for them. Ghost Moon manages to recreate the granite intolerance of more than half a century ago and the sheer desperation of single mothers trying to keep their children and survive.
That makes this sound bleak, but it’s far from it. Having always lived at home and never had a proper job, Maggie discovers in herself a resourcefulness and determination she never knew she possessed.
When drudgery is called for, she knuckles down and her sharp creative mind constructs alternative — respectable — histories for herself when needed. And amid it all she manages to find, albeit briefly, love. Ron Butlin’s novel is decidedly old-fashioned, but in the best possible way. Wonderfully well-written and difficult not to devour at a sitting.
FAN by Danny Rhodes (Arcadia £11.99 £10.49)
PUBLISHED to coincide with this week’s 25th anniversary of the Hillsborough disaster when 96 Liverpool football fans were crushed to death, Danny Rhodes’ third novel focuses on the aftermath for those there, in particular postman John Finch, a 17-year-old Nottingham Forest fan.
Clearly suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder after watching the tragedy unfold before his eyes, Finch cannot cope. Driven to heavy drinking and popping pills to blot out the violent memories, and emotionally cruel to his girlfriend Jen, he exists in a confused fog until the body of a murdered woman is found on wasteland on his postal route.
The problem is, Finch was so out of it on the night of the killing he can’t remember a thing, except coming to bruised and hungover on the stairs of his flat in the early hours.
At times stylistically reminiscent of David Peace’s The Damned United — also concerning Nottingham Forest and its manager Brian Clough — which is no bad thing, it’s no wonder Rhodes’ depiction of disaster and ensuing PTSD has the ring of authenticity: he was at Hillsborough that fateful day.