Choosing one book for a whole city to read together can be a daunting prospect. Get it wrong and you risk turning readers off. Get it right – as in the case of Paul McVeigh’s The Good Son, chosen for City Reads 2016 – and it becomes a wonderful, joyous celebration of what it means to be human. And in these uncertain times, the timing couldn’t have been better.
City Reads (Brighton) was conceived in 2005, while I was working at Brighton Festival as a literature programmer. Celebrating their 70th anniversary, Penguin Books approached us to see if we thought a “big read” would work in Brighton. We said yes, chose Alice in Wonderland to read, and City Reads was born. We are now the longest-running big read in the UK and have never looked back.
With so many books published each year, and so few securing big marketing budgets, many excellent novels struggle for exposure. We pride ourselves on taking the time to search out books that might fall under the radar. We try as hard as we can to seek out new voices in literature and see it as our job to discover fresh talent.
The City Reads book has to be well crafted: that may seem obvious, but it can be hard to find a book that’s a page turner and at the same time, beautifully written. It has to have a good story, with characters the audience can care about, and of course, it’s a bonus if the book’s funny. When it came to The Good Son, there was a tick in every box. As soon as I read Paul’s novel I knew we’d found our 2016 title. It made me laugh (out loud), it made me cry, it was a book I wanted to shout about, so choosing it for Brighton & Hove’s annual big read seemed like the perfect way to do that.
Ten-year-old Mickey Donnelly is one of the most memorable protagonists I’ve read for a long time. He’s by no means perfect, and I think that’s why readers can relate to him. He loves his mum, his dog, Killer, and his younger sister, Wee Maggie. The beautifully portrayed relationship between Mickey and Wee Maggie was the clincher for me. It was so natural and touching. And made more poignant because Paul juxtaposes it against the brutality of the Ardoyne with its daily threat of violence, random house searches, bombings and riots.
The story unfolds over the course of the long summer before Mickey starts secondary school. He dreams of escaping to America and living the life he sees on TV. This outstanding debut could be read as a sweet and moving coming-of-age-story, but it is much more than that. It is a raw, honest and moving account of a family at war. And a chilling reminder of what life was like for ordinary people during the Troubles.
It is Paul McVeigh’s expert use of authentic dialogue and humour throughout that lifts the narrative, creating joy and laughter from such bleak reality, and why I had to recommend the book to our panel. With fingers firmly crossed I handed it over and it was a unanimous thumbs up for The Good Son. I don’t think we’ve ever chosen a book before where everyone in the organisation was in total agreement.
With our 2016 book chosen, it was time to unleash it on the community. That’s when you know pretty quickly whether you’ve made the right choice. I had faith we’d picked a winner, but I wasn’t prepared for quite how popular it would be. People LOVED it – immediately. I had emails from readers, messages on Twitter and Facebook from new fans of the book. There was a lot of media interest which resulted in several features and a TV appearance by Paul.
I think the fact that the unveiling of The Good Son for City Reads 2016 coincided with the centenary of the Easter Rising certainly helped give the novel a political context for readers. It also enabled us to host some interesting events around the themes. We screened the film Cal with a post-show discussion, led by Brighton University’s Prof Graham Dawson, a specialist on the Troubles. We also hosted an Irish whiskey tasting on St Patrick’s Night and involved the Irish Society in Brighton, who felt very proud that an Irish book had been chosen.
The project culminated with Paul McVeigh’s sell-out event at Brighton Festival. The wonderful and unusual thing about the closing City Reads event is that the audience has already read, discussed and fallen in love with the book. Paul’s Brighton Festival appearance was intimate, joyous and fun, like having dinner with old friends (200 of them!). The festival bookseller commented afterwards that she’d never heard so much laughter at a book event. Which I think is a testament to how much Brighton loved this book. Its warmth, its humanity, its soul. I urge you to read it if you haven’t already.
[ cityreads.co.ukOpens in new window ]
Throughout July, we shall explore The Good Son from many angles, not just with its author but also with contributions by several other well-known writers, including Lisa McInerney, winner of the Baileys and Desmond Elliott Prize; Laura van den Berg, whom Salon.com called “the best young writer in America”; Alison Moore, Booker-shortlisted author of The Lighthouse; Lucy Caldwell, winner of the Dylan Thomas & Rooney Prize; Danielle McLaughlin; Paul Burston, author of seven novels and founder of The Polari Salon & Prize; as well as Sarah Hutchings of City Reads Brighton; and his British publisher, Jen Emery-Hamilton. The month will culminate in a podcast in which the author will discuss his novel with Martin Doyle, assistant literary editor of The Irish Times. This will be published on July 31st and recorded at a public event in the Irish Writers Centre, Parnell Square, Dublin, on Tuesday, July 19th, at 7.30pm.
