Rodge Glass: One to Watch

Hope For Newborns is the second book by Rodge Glass, after 2005’s No Fireworks. This was a debut novel which, though never less than a decent read, had a number of excellent passages interspersed throughout, enough to make me want more.
Now Glass returns with just that and Hope For Newborns itself will be followed later this year with his much-anticipated biography of Alasdair Gray. The two were written simultaneously, and so, Glass says, “I avoided the usual 'second book syndrome' by writing a biography at the same time.” And to a schedule too - “I did the two books over three years, skipping between each when I got bored or frustrated. But I wouldn't recommend the strategy: it's a sure way to lose your mind...”

Hope For Newborns is the first fruit of this mind-losing strategy. It’s about a normalish guy named Lewis Passman, a 29-year old recruitment agency employee who is bored with his work and his life in general. Then he starts receiving emails, from someone he assumes is his old schoolfriend Christy, telling him about Hope For Newborns. This is a society aimed at changing the world for the better. Just not necessarily legally. “I always feel conned over the internet!” Rodge says “Whether I'm giving card details to a company I don't trust, getting rid of stupid spam or trying to articulate how I really feel about something painful to my best friend on the other side of the world by email, I think the internet is a pretty cold form - so I feel violated by it pretty often! But it's an essential form of communication now," and so it plays an increasingly central part in modern writing. Glass cleverly keeps the internet at the periphery of Hope For Newborns for a long time, showing how the "pretty cold form" can seem like a source of warmth to Lewis, compared to the rest of his life.

And though Lewis’s life is bleak, it has its amusing moments. Not amusing enough to justify the pull quote on the cover that calls Glass "A very good comic writer", but I doubt that this was the intention. “I've never found my work amusing” Glass says. “I always think it's tragic but tragedy is often close to comedy, and I keep being told there's a very dark humour in there. I think this book is a serious political novel”. It does have a political dimension, and it’s one of the best parts of the book, but this is no polemic. It simply has characters who have been moulded by their political situations. Of course, we all are to an extent – but novels don’t always recognise that. Glass says, “My heroine, Christy, is a radical feminist revolutionary, and the book is contemporary - so yes, the current political situation is important, especially to her. But it's not as simple as the war in Iraq, or Bush, or anything like that. A lifetime of rage and frustration is not made by one thing”.

The improved political dimension is one of the areas in which this book betters its predecessor. It’s a richer book, and one with more excellent passages than No Fireworks. Glass describes the difference – “In my first book the characters were everything - I didn't really think about plot. I only thought about me me me, and how to entertain myself while I was writing.” he says. “This time I've tried to think of plot much more, but unless you have well-rounded characters then you have nothing. So that's most important for me.”

Hope For Newborns is a good read, but doesn’t quite achieve the level of greatness that I felt it could have. Rodge Glass told me that “One day, if I get good enough, I want to be seen in the same way as the best literary writers: Rushdie, Kureishi, Ishiguro, Roth. People don't say they are 'comic', 'political' or anything specific - they just document the world around them, as all good writers do.” He’s not quite at that level yet – but that’s a severely high level. Watch this space though, because Glass shows in flashes that he has talent to burn, and he’s improving all the time.