New Brighton by Helen Trevorrow
(Red Dog Press, 2022)
Reviewed by John Dodd
The thing about unreliable narrators is that they lend a degree of uncertainty to the story that means that you can’t entirely throw yourself into the book because you don’t know if the story that’s being told is the right one, the wrong one, or not even the story. That said, stories with unreliable narrators can also take liberties with characters and increase the level of intrigue because you really don’t know who to focus on.
So it is here…
New Brighton starts with a simple story, Robyn Lockheart and her boyfriend Vincent, enjoying a night out, but almost instantly we’re faced with the notion that something is wrong, as the scene cuts from what was going on to something else entirely, and then back to what was going on before. Robyn is no more sure of her reality than we are, she wants to believe that she understands what is going on, but it is soon apparent that she does not. When she tries to return from Brighton after a trip at the beginning of the book and finds that they can’t come back to London, not just because the roads are closed, but because there is no way back, literally no way back, London isn’t there anymore, we begin to understand how strange things really are. This continues throughout the entire book.
The additional problem of unreliable narrators is that you have to be careful how you review them in case you give away details that weren’t meant to be given away…
There is something wrong with the world, certainly the world that Robyn is in, whether it’s a fault within Robyn or a fault within the world itself isn’t clear, and the narrative is very careful not to expose anything that would leave it obvious to an observant reader. This in turn leads to more uncertainty, the presence of an artifact, the cube, and the possibility that the memories that Robyn has are not entirely her memories, only serves to stoke the fires of curiosity further.
New Brighton doesn’t waste any time in getting to the strange things, but it means that you haven’t really formed a baseline on the characters with the exception of Robyn, so you have to stay with her to try to understand what’s going on, and it’s soon clear that you can’t trust what is going on in her head. The narrative starts to clear up by the time you’re halfway in, and it becomes more evident what is really going on. There are jumps between the past and the present, and characters aren’t cemented till the last quarter of the book, whereupon the drive of the plot is revealed, and the reality of it solidifies to the point where you can start believing what you’re reading without wondering if it’s going to turn around again.
I did like the way the story never stopped twisting, just when you thought you had the truth of it, it turned again and you were back on the puzzled path. There’s a greater purpose to what’s going on, and you’re always so close to it that you can almost see what’s going on, which entices you to continue. The continual turns proved a little frustrating in points, I’d have liked to have been sure of what I was reading against what I was seeing, but overall, it didn’t detract from the book.
This wasn’t the easiest of reads, some of the cuts between scenes were jarring, and the imagery used is both visceral and jarring, and while some descriptions didn’t make sense to me, I could see the intentions behind them. Nonetheless, it’s a good read with a strong sense of mystery to it. I’d recommend this to anyone who liked the film Dark City or Memento or enjoyed the book version of Fight Club.
Review from BSFA Review 19 - Download your copy here.