Review: The Blue Book – A L Kennedy

If reading is supposed to be a pleasure, then A L Kennedy’s The Blue Book certainly did what it was supposed to do. To start with, the presentation of the book is lovely with its deep blue and gold cover with blue-edged pages – it may be a book which needs to be read on paper rather than on a Kindle, for other reasons too which will become apparent later.

This book even began by talking to me:

Your book – its started now, its touched and opened, held.  You could if you wanted heft it, wonder if it weights more than a pigeon, or a plimsoll, or quite probably rather less than a wholemeal loaf.  And you’re a reader – clearly – here you are reading your book, which is what it was made for.  It loves when you look, wakes when you look, and then it listens and it speaks.

We read of Elizabeth (“Beth”) Barber, about to sail across the Atlantic on a ship, with her middle-aged boy-friend Derek who looks as though he might be proposing to her before they reach New York.  But Elizabeth has a past – she has been one half of a team of stage clairvoyants and her ex-partner in psychic manipulation, Arthur, is still very much in her thoughts.

As Elizabeth and Derek wait to board the boat, we get drawn into Elizabeth’s private thoughts (something that will recur throughout the book):

Why are we here?  We’re not “cruise people”.  We’re not quoits and gin slings and rubbers of bridge people. Or being driven past monuments at speed with optional commentary people.  We are not “tonight will be the 1974 theme disco in the Galaxy Room” people. Why are we here?  Why am I here?  Why am I here with Derek?

While still queuing she finds herself harassed by a man doing magic tricks – “think of a number”, and leading her through a routine which ends up in the pages of a book which predicts her first answer.  But Elizabeth finds that it is a trick book with false page numbers.  And lo and behold, we begin to leaf through the book we are reading, The Blue Book, and find that the the page numbers here are also mixed up and deceiving (Kindle readers of this book will be missing something here).  Is this going to be a straightforward read?  I think A L Kennedy, with her other career as a stand up comedian,  is going to trick her readers and make them wonder what exactly is real in this intriguing story.

The Atlantic crossing is exceptionally rough and poor Derek is confined to his cabin, as close to the bathroom as possible.  This leaves Beth at a loose end and as she wanders the ship she keeps encountering the trickster from the queue but is also drawn into a relationship with a comforting elderly couple who try to take her under their wing.  Meanwhile we hear much more about stage clairvoyance by flashing back to the Beth and Arthur double-act, which as we may suppose consisted of Beth researching attenders at the “readings” and passing inside information onto the charismatic Arthur.  But Arthur is not so much a trickster as a counsellor who sees beyond the trickery to the comfort his revelations bring to his trouble audience.

As we know, the double-act is no more and Arthur has is now achieving great success delivering one-to-one clairvoyance and counselling of wealthy American widows. We discover that Beth and Arthur still meet up for weekends of turbulent sex, which Beth finds comforting but deeply unsettling, but how can she break this almost other-world ordained partnership when the only alternative is the dull and mundane Derek, now nosily vomiting in his cabin.

The book moves steadily through the Atlantic crossing revealing more and more about the relationship between Beth and Arthur.  It is going to be very difficult for Beth ever to get him out of her system.  Revelation after revelation draws us into an unwinding story, the climax of which is finally revealed with poetry and grace.

I think I agree with the publisher’s blurb that this book offers “illusions and false trails, magical numbers and redemptive humour”.  Its a great read which brings pleasure not only through the novelty of the story but the fine writing which has the power to occasionally stop this reader in his tracks. Its a sharp, clever book, but also funny and insightful.  If I was writing this for Amazon I’d easily give it five stars and wish A L Kennedy every success with it.