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A review by pippa_w
Elmet by Fiona Mozley
4.0
I hear those voices again: the men, and the girl. The rage. The fear. The resolve.
This book is not a light romp, and it is not for the faint of heart. A couple of the covers might make you think it is - don't be fooled. I was fortunate enough to end up with the THIS IS A DARK BOOK cover.
‘Your Daddy needs it. The violence. I wouldn’t say he enjoys it, even, but he needs it. It quenches him.’
Elmet is a jet-black tale about nomadic survival in Yorkshire in the 1980s. It's also about the dark hive mind, exploitation, violence, and the full extent of family dedication. This is a captivating literary fiction, and the writing is absolutely stunning to match.
I felt like I could now hear the blood in my veins, coursing through the tiny channels like rushing white water in a gorge. I felt like I could hear it roiling inside of me, almost trying to cut new paths within me, larger channels to the sea outside.
Mozley's work is highly emotionally engaging, accomplished through a gorgeous dynamic. Despite the doom and foreboding that casts itself over the book, you are hoping that the family will make it all the way through. This, for the most part, is absolutely not accomplished through the characters, who are largely one-dimensional due to the fact that Mozley dedicates most of her time to creating setting and atmosphere and background, rather than the people who exist in it. She adds surface-level complexity, but beautiful, developed character we do not have here, and some attempts at complexity fall short (more about that later).
‘We all grow into our coffins, Danny. And I saw myself growing into mine.’
This is not a huge issue. We still have great characters here - they just don't happen to arc much. Cathy is an absolute powerhouse throughout. She's tough, and honest - a sexual and physical violence survivor who won't be a victim. On the other end, Mr. Price is a truly despicable, and horrifyingly so, landlord who makes your skin crawl every time he's on the page. Do either of them experience much character development? No, but their baselines jump off the page and make the story more compelling.
I lived with my sister and my father and they were my whole world. I did not think of Cathy as a girl nor a woman, I thought of her as Cathy. I did not think of Daddy as a man, though I knew that he was. I thought about him, likewise, as Daddy.
A potentially harmful thing about this book is how Mozley handles sexual identity and orientation. She approaches the topics, but unfortunately frames them almost entirely in perversion and violation. Identity is explored through rifling through a woman's dirty underwear without her knowledge. Exploration takes place between children and adults, and even if consent were possible in that situation, it would be dubious at best. It's added to help deepen a main character and I think it's meant to be casual representation - as in the identity and orientation aren't meant to drive the plot - but the way that it is included without addressing the sexual invasion and pedophilia is not okay.
So. This book is gorgeous, with a deeply upsetting and well-executed plot. The characters don't grow, but their baseline works for the story. Tread carefully if you are (justifiably) uncomfortable with troubling queer representation. It's not a big part of the book, but it's there.
Big sister, little brother. I wanted her to lead the way, tell me what was what, carry me home.
This book is not a light romp, and it is not for the faint of heart. A couple of the covers might make you think it is - don't be fooled. I was fortunate enough to end up with the THIS IS A DARK BOOK cover.
‘Your Daddy needs it. The violence. I wouldn’t say he enjoys it, even, but he needs it. It quenches him.’
Elmet is a jet-black tale about nomadic survival in Yorkshire in the 1980s. It's also about the dark hive mind, exploitation, violence, and the full extent of family dedication. This is a captivating literary fiction, and the writing is absolutely stunning to match.
I felt like I could now hear the blood in my veins, coursing through the tiny channels like rushing white water in a gorge. I felt like I could hear it roiling inside of me, almost trying to cut new paths within me, larger channels to the sea outside.
Mozley's work is highly emotionally engaging, accomplished through a gorgeous dynamic. Despite the doom and foreboding that casts itself over the book, you are hoping that the family will make it all the way through. This, for the most part, is absolutely not accomplished through the characters, who are largely one-dimensional due to the fact that Mozley dedicates most of her time to creating setting and atmosphere and background, rather than the people who exist in it. She adds surface-level complexity, but beautiful, developed character we do not have here, and some attempts at complexity fall short (more about that later).
‘We all grow into our coffins, Danny. And I saw myself growing into mine.’
This is not a huge issue. We still have great characters here - they just don't happen to arc much. Cathy is an absolute powerhouse throughout. She's tough, and honest - a sexual and physical violence survivor who won't be a victim. On the other end, Mr. Price is a truly despicable, and horrifyingly so, landlord who makes your skin crawl every time he's on the page. Do either of them experience much character development? No, but their baselines jump off the page and make the story more compelling.
I lived with my sister and my father and they were my whole world. I did not think of Cathy as a girl nor a woman, I thought of her as Cathy. I did not think of Daddy as a man, though I knew that he was. I thought about him, likewise, as Daddy.
A potentially harmful thing about this book is how Mozley handles sexual identity and orientation. She approaches the topics, but unfortunately frames them almost entirely in perversion and violation. Identity is explored through rifling through a woman's dirty underwear without her knowledge. Exploration takes place between children and adults, and even if consent were possible in that situation, it would be dubious at best. It's added to help deepen a main character and I think it's meant to be casual representation - as in the identity and orientation aren't meant to drive the plot - but the way that it is included without addressing the sexual invasion and pedophilia is not okay.
So. This book is gorgeous, with a deeply upsetting and well-executed plot. The characters don't grow, but their baseline works for the story. Tread carefully if you are (justifiably) uncomfortable with troubling queer representation. It's not a big part of the book, but it's there.
Big sister, little brother. I wanted her to lead the way, tell me what was what, carry me home.