Twenty-One Locks

 

There are 21 locks in a canal running through a standard-issue north Lancashire town, the nondescript anonymity of the village perfectly befitting Jeannie, the unexceptional girl at the big heart of this story. She's dull, but as you follow her humdrum, indistinct character magnetically through the story you'll realise she is more real and closer to you than your shadow. The context provides the perfect realist template and although Barton’s tone initially seems contrived, a stealthy undertow takes you unawares deep into the grey hullabaloo of the dreary small town narrative. Barton is prolifically and incredibly descriptive; innocuous domestic moments reveal a lyrical and melancholic dreariness and day-to-day inanities become the poignant pillars of a surprising tragedy. The story is quiet but secretly bold, its undercurrent begging the questions; are we hostages to fortune or do we mastermind our own tragedies? Does our social context oppress us or is it our own internal hegemony? Perhaps because the story resonates with both the ordinary moments that make up the bulk of our lives, and with the less frequent throat-constricting, wide-eyed, surely-there-is-more-to-life moments, that this is a most real, most applicable and accessible contemporary novel that you should read. [Renée Rowland]