The West Midlands vernacular that permeates Anthony Cartright’s new novel, How I Killed Margaret Thatcher, feels like a direct consequence of the rule of the Iron Lady.
So devastating were the cuts orchestrated by her government to cities outside of London (not that the capital was spared, by any stretch of the imagination) that a kind of regional rebellion, a community consensus seemed to form. Cartwright’s execution of the distinctive dialect is excellent, though it isn’t the novel’s sole form of attack.
Sean, a child of the Thatcher era, is looking back at his childhood: first prosperous, then disastrous following his father’s redundancy. In a cruel irony, it is revealed that his father was a Tory voter, much to the disdain of his staunchly (old) Labour grandfather and Sean’s uncle, socialist dandy Johnny. Sean’s childhood narration comprises the bulk of the novel, and while passages are often intricately constructed—his relationships with the men of his family; sports with dad, drinks with grandad, are among the novel’s credits—the narrative method can, at times, feel a little laboured. Granted, it offers an alternative slant on ‘80s Britain, but it does so with less guile than, say, GB84 or What a Carve Up!
However, the book feels distinctly modern: Conservative government, deep spending cuts, erosion of the welfare state, riots in major cities. It’s an irony not wasted on Cartwright, who uses the 80s veil to offer a stinging insight into modern-day politics: often with great humour in the process. The book’s funny moments, which are often very dark indeed, prove another of its triumphs—arguably the comic passages are those in which the child-narrator mechanism works best. How I Killed Margaret Thatcher is definitely not short on ambition; Cartwright’s novel is an engaging read which coheres with the UK’s current political zeitgeist. Whether it will still be relevant when the incumbents vacate remains to be seen.
Comments