Bottles of wine from: http://blog.lightninglabels.com/blog/images/wine_5.jpg
A bottle of potato wine, made by an astral travelling old eccentric talks, quite legitimately, to Jay Mackintosh, who drinks too much, writes too little, and hallucinates a lot. Personally, I might have been inclined to diagnose malaria, except he hadn’t been to the tropics. But there isn’t just one bottle of wine talking. There are six, and unlike The Big Six (the men who fought to secure Ghana’s independence from British rule in 1957) the six bottles are called The Specials. Except the most special of all, the Fleurie ‘76 was actually made from potatoes. Fancy that!
I’ve never seen talking wine fictionalized in all my life, and it’s impressive. It’s really crass isn’t it, when an alkie says ‘I drank because the drink told me to’, but here, it works. The Specials rattle and talk to Jay from the cellar, they solve his problems, they tatse of magic and far away lands, and of the cosy kitchen of his youth; they contain layman’s alchemy.
It’s a really good book set between metropolitan London and rural Lansquenet. Apart from Jay’s status as a one hit wonder author and the power tussles with his media barbie girlfriend, it’s a touching story of the unravelling of a man’s past, and the congruence between his past and his future. Jay’s relationship with Jackapple Joe, and the love of gardening and wine making that he got from the old man, are an intersting way of showing us what the main character would become, and most importantly, why. I think it’s one of thos major considerations that many authors take for granted these days; why a character is the way they are, and Harris did a brilliant job with this.
The characterizatione? Spot on. Setting? Ditto. Narrative style and dialogue? Perfect. Needless to say, I truly wish I had written this!
P. S. There were blackberries in the supermarkets not too long ago. Perhaps I’ll try to make some actual blackberry wine, with fruit, not spuds. I’m sure there’s bound to be a recipe I can get hold of. That said, perhaps the bosses at Spuds’u’like should take a cue from this and explore a new business area – collecting the unsold potatoes at all their outlets, and brewing them into a special in-house ale. Layman’s alchemy, afterall!
Blackberry Wine (£6.99) is published by HarperCollins
I’ve never seen talking wine fictionalized in all my life, and it’s impressive. It’s really crass isn’t it, when an alkie says ‘I drank because the drink told me to’, but here, it works. The Specials rattle and talk to Jay from the cellar, they solve his problems, they tatse of magic and far away lands, and of the cosy kitchen of his youth; they contain layman’s alchemy.
It’s a really good book set between metropolitan London and rural Lansquenet. Apart from Jay’s status as a one hit wonder author and the power tussles with his media barbie girlfriend, it’s a touching story of the unravelling of a man’s past, and the congruence between his past and his future. Jay’s relationship with Jackapple Joe, and the love of gardening and wine making that he got from the old man, are an intersting way of showing us what the main character would become, and most importantly, why. I think it’s one of thos major considerations that many authors take for granted these days; why a character is the way they are, and Harris did a brilliant job with this.
The characterizatione? Spot on. Setting? Ditto. Narrative style and dialogue? Perfect. Needless to say, I truly wish I had written this!
P. S. There were blackberries in the supermarkets not too long ago. Perhaps I’ll try to make some actual blackberry wine, with fruit, not spuds. I’m sure there’s bound to be a recipe I can get hold of. That said, perhaps the bosses at Spuds’u’like should take a cue from this and explore a new business area – collecting the unsold potatoes at all their outlets, and brewing them into a special in-house ale. Layman’s alchemy, afterall!
Blackberry Wine (£6.99) is published by HarperCollins
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