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Reading: A Spoke in the Wheel
May. 12th, 2018 04:23 pmKathleen Jowitt's first novel, Speak its Name, was the first self-published novel to be shortlisted for the Betty Trask prize. It was also one of my favourite reads of 2016, so I was really looking forward to her second novel, A Spoke in the Wheel, which has just been released.
A Spoke in the Wheel leaves behind the university environment of Speak its Name; it's the story of former professional cyclist Ben Goddard, who has fled the world of cycling after failing a drugs test and moves to a Lancashire seaside town to try to build a new life while working two minimum wage jobs on zero hours contracts. Unfortunately, the first two people he meets are cycling fans - amateur cyclist Vicki, who drives herself to the point of exhaustion in a low-waged job for a charity, and chronically ill former medical student Polly - and after a slightly rocky start, the three end up agreeing to share a house.
I am not a cycling fan; I tend to be aware that the Tour de France is taking place because there's an annual spinning challenge, the Tour de Fleece, that takes place alongside it, and I'll half-watch it if it's on for the French scenery, but I'm not really interested in the sport itself. That didn't really matter, though; cycling may be what brings the main characters in A Spoke in the Wheel together but it's not a novel about cycling; it's a novel about people and their relationships, and about disability and what it's like to be low-waged or on benefits in Britain today, and about friendship and moving on from failure and how to work out what the things that really matter are. Like Speak its Name, it's a novel about human beings being human, in ways that are immediately recognisable even though the specific circumstances may be outside my own experience. It's funny and moving and a call to righteous anger about the way our society treats some of the most vulnerable, and I loved it.
(Because I know Kathleen Jowitt, I was also very, very amused by one scene, where Polly and Ben overhear a book group in a pub and try to work out what book they're discussing. I knew exactly what the book was, as I was in fact a participant in the original of that discussion, and was greatly entertained to find it in the book!)
A Spoke in the Wheel leaves behind the university environment of Speak its Name; it's the story of former professional cyclist Ben Goddard, who has fled the world of cycling after failing a drugs test and moves to a Lancashire seaside town to try to build a new life while working two minimum wage jobs on zero hours contracts. Unfortunately, the first two people he meets are cycling fans - amateur cyclist Vicki, who drives herself to the point of exhaustion in a low-waged job for a charity, and chronically ill former medical student Polly - and after a slightly rocky start, the three end up agreeing to share a house.
I am not a cycling fan; I tend to be aware that the Tour de France is taking place because there's an annual spinning challenge, the Tour de Fleece, that takes place alongside it, and I'll half-watch it if it's on for the French scenery, but I'm not really interested in the sport itself. That didn't really matter, though; cycling may be what brings the main characters in A Spoke in the Wheel together but it's not a novel about cycling; it's a novel about people and their relationships, and about disability and what it's like to be low-waged or on benefits in Britain today, and about friendship and moving on from failure and how to work out what the things that really matter are. Like Speak its Name, it's a novel about human beings being human, in ways that are immediately recognisable even though the specific circumstances may be outside my own experience. It's funny and moving and a call to righteous anger about the way our society treats some of the most vulnerable, and I loved it.
(Because I know Kathleen Jowitt, I was also very, very amused by one scene, where Polly and Ben overhear a book group in a pub and try to work out what book they're discussing. I knew exactly what the book was, as I was in fact a participant in the original of that discussion, and was greatly entertained to find it in the book!)
