Today I Have Mostly Been Reading...

I've finished reading 'The Afterglow' and I loved it. The narrative is in standard English, but the dialogue is all in Black Country, so I don't know how those outside the area would find it.

To me it was a comfort blanket of a book, full of rich familiarity, while my real life has so much that is new. I've spent my childhood in that kitchen, with my Nan and all my aunties, uncles and cousins; I've walked around that Crem., I could even see the trees as Mary stands under. I read it mainly on fag breaks, having just left the frightfully middle class world of my office, to have a moment back in all that I know and all that I love. It was time out in so many senses of the word.

I can't say that there's much of a story, but it's one of those books where there doesn't need to be. It's about ordinary life seen from a myriad of perspectives, as each chapter takes the plot from a different person's viewpoint. The more you muse, the more profound some of the perspectives became. I didn't simply feel that I knew the characters, I felt that I was one of them and proud of it too.

Viva the Black Country!