2012 is going to be a very productive year for Iain Broome. Not only has his first novel A is for Angelica just been published but he’s also expecting identical twin sons. Despite arriving within a few months of each other the former creation had a far longer gestation period than the latter, having been started some 9 years ago. ‘Angelica’, as Iain affectionately calls the novel, was conceived on Sheffield Hallam’s MA Writing course and partly written while working in the university’s marketing department. By day he would diligently edit university prospectuses and by evening, lunch-break and weekend he would write the tale of Gordon Kingdom – a prisoner of suburbia, meticulously trying to keep control of a life warped by tragedy.
It’s a slow burn of a book that stays with you long after the last page. Narrated in the first person, Gordon’s deadpan description of the minutiae of his daily life gradually reveals grotesquely funny and quietly heart-breaking episodes as he deals with his dog’s diarrhoea, partakes in undercover horticultural vandalism and wrestles with the care of his dangerously-ill wife. Gordon’s obsessive behaviour – methodically recording the actions of his neighbours – and his lack of social empathy – an episode in which he utters the word ‘penis’ to a lady vicar springs to mind – are reminiscent of the narrator in Mark Haddon’s The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. That said, like Haddon, Broome never labels his character with a condition, ‘I wouldn’t want to set up a load of expectations which would distract from the story.’ There’s also a very English sensibility at work in the humour, which is shot through with the rueful whimsy of Alan Bennett, sometimes tinged with the darkness of The League of Gentleman. Despite these comparisons, the novel showcases a distinctive voice through a deceptively simple and economic style which hides great depths.
When asked what his influences were, Iain cited Margaret Atwood’s Cat’s Eye as the book which made him want to be a writer, primarily because of the power with which Atwood invests even the shortest and simplest of sentences. For this reason Raymond Carver’s short stories were also a literary inspiration and cemented Broome’s credo to, ‘make an impact with every single sentence.’ This also means cutting ‘the fluff’ which is where his day job as a copywriter at Sheffield-based creative agency The Workshop helps.
It’s not only Iain’s professional life which has had an influence on the book, he grew up in the Amber Valley and although the setting of the novel is never named it has a strong sense of place – a limbo-land, neither town nor countryside which owes its existence to the declining industry of opencast mining. There’s also a local connection in the book cover, designed by artist Jonathan Wilkinson whose wonderful graphical prints of Steel City landmarks adorn every Sheffield hipster’s walls. Apart from reading the novel Iain didn’t feel any need to give Jonathan a brief, ‘He’s so ace, I just left him to it… I’ve lived in Sheffield for over a decade and Jonathan’s work is synonymous with Sheffield so it seemed perfect to have him do the cover.’
One aspect of the novel which was not so familiar to Iain, was Gordon’s wife Georgina’s illness, ‘no one in my family has ever had a stroke so I wanted to make sure this aspect of the book was plausible and didn’t make a mockery of the condition.’ As well as doing a deal of book and web research, he also consulted Dr Ruth Herbert of the Department of Human Communication Sciences at Sheffield University. The result was a change of timeline for the plot and a book which, while it has a compelling weirdness, never strains credulity enough to rupture the emotional truth.
Given that much of the novel was written a few years ago there are a couple of details which seem to tap into the current zeitgeist. I counted not one but two uses of the phrase ‘shades of grey’, ‘I should claim some sort of copyright infringement’ jokes Iain. Also Gordon’s hobby of cake baking seems curiously a la mode, until you read deeper resonance into the baked goods, his final offering of an angel cake being particularly poignant. However, no one could imagine that these cultural hot topics were cynically inserted into a novel which creates such a coherent world of idiosyncratic narration, domestic tragedy and off-beat humour.
Visit Iain Broome’s website here.
Buy the ebook of A is for Angelica on Kindle for just £0.99 as part of Amazon’s 100 ebooks for £2.99 or less summer promotion – only at this special price until the end of August.
Or if you want the print edition with that beautifully designed book cover it will be available to buy from 1 September from all good book shops.
There will be a book launch for A is for Angelica at The Lantern Theatre in Sheffield on Thursday 6 September. It’ll be free entry and Iain will be talking about and reading from the book. Book your place here.