My Book Of The Year (With Seven Months To Go)

Stephen Bardot is a Brighton taxi driver working the night shift.  He picks up drunks, freaks, revelers, bingo players, men in suits, women in tears - all manner of human life sits on his back seat. 

One regular passenger is Valerie, a cancer patient who takes his cab to her weekly therapy meetings.  With each trip she appears thinner, weaker, until eventually Stephen is no longer called to 13 Wish Street and he finds himself upset at the assumption of her death.  So much so that he asks the control room for news, does anyone know what has happened to her?  The response he receives kicks him into a surreal adventure and takes the reader on an unforgettable journey in the process.

There is no number 13 Wish Street.

Refusing to believe that he has been picking up passengers that don't exist, Stephen finds himself drawn into the strange and dangerous world of 'Thirteen', a real or imagined existence where the normal rules no longer apply.  He meets other inhabitants, gets into fights, falls in love, and finds his sanity pushed to the limits.

This is a book about the 'zone' - the space between night and day, the hazy otherworld, half-awake/half-alseep - a place where strange things happen.  How appropriate then that I became wary of picking it up as the clock approached midnight, knowing that if I did so I would get sucked in to its addictive plot only to emerge out the other side to the sound of birdsong and the first light of dawn.

Beaumont has attempted the very difficult trick of interlacing the ordinary world with an extraordinary universe whilst keeping the reader believing in the story.  The two obvious comparisons, although this will sound grand, are with The Magus and The Wind-up Bird Chronicle.  With those classics you are presented with a world that you know cannot possibly be true, but you are determined to stick with it and part of you wishes it were real.  While reading them you become slight disorientated, the world outside of the book begins to take a new sheen.  It is as if you are walking along a slight camber, or balancing on a kerb after a couple of drinks - just about keeping things level.  All three books, to use a phrase I have used here before, fuck with your mind.  Or is that just me?

Thirteen will not be everybody's cup of tea, but that does not stop it being an extraordinary book.  If this had been published by Faber, Canongate or Picador (and it would be perfectly appropriate for any of those imprints) then reviewers and prize panels would be falling over each other to pour praise and awards upon it.  As it stands, it has been largely (although not entirely) ignored.  Reviews have been thin on the ground and the book chains have hardly touched it (according to their website, the book is currently only in stock in 6 out of 330 Waterstone's branches, despite the fact that it gets a 4 star review on that very site from one of their own booksellers).  Honorable exception is Borders, who are actively promoting the book in their indie bay.

This is not really the fault of the publisher, Myrmidon, who have sweat blood trying to get retailers and broadsheet editors to notice.  Nor are retailers to blame really, they have lots of books to sift through and can't possibly spot them all.  No, it is the system that sucks.  It is ludicrously difficult for a new small publisher to get their books noticed.  Some take out press and trade ads, only to discover that they rarely lead to any book sales.  Others try a charm offensive on retailers but with supermarkets largely unapproachable and Smiths ignoring small publishers completely the routes are somewhat limited.  Many believe that the broadsheets will be eager to review new talent, and I suppose they are if the books are published by any of their mates.  All in all it is bloody difficult to let anyone know that a new book is even available.  Crossing your fingers is often the most effective method.

I am convinced that if anyone in a book chain actually read Thirteen then they would stock it immediately, that certainly seems to be what has happened at Borders and in the indies that have taken a punt.  I don't really think this blog post will make a direct difference, but perhaps it will spark a little bit of interest and get a few people who can make a difference to give it a read.

I was blown away by this fine book and I suspect many others will be as well.  I only hope they will be given the opportunity to do so.

Thirteen is published by Myrmidon books and is available as a hardback and paperback, depending on your preference.

Comments

[Julie]

Lovely, that has solved my birthday-gift-for-someone-with-quirky-tastes dilemma very nicely.
On the subject of chains I hear that Waterstone's can't quite tear itself away from the posh end of Oxford Street and is taking over the Books etc. store opposite Selfridges...

[Mutterings & Meanderings]

This rings a bell with me. I did some part-time PR for a miniscule publisher (he published a single guidebook, updated annually).

Getting it into magazines etc wasn't hard but the battles he had with the likes of WH Smith left him banging his head against the wall at the 'system'.

[David Barnett]

This book sounds right up my dark alley, and I'll definitely be seeking it out. I'm not really surprised, though, that it a) didn't find a bigger publisher or b) hasn't been wildly pushed by the booksellers. My own first novel (which I won't namedrop here for fear of accusations of hijacking comments for base self-publicity; if anyone's that arsed they can follow the link) treads a very similar path to Thirteen. It was only the small press http//:www.immanion-press.com>Immanion Press that took a chance on it after some bits of interest but ultimate nothing more from the bigger publishers.

Waterstone's in the place I live now, Bradford, were great and we had a launch party and they've kept it in stock ever since, but other stores haven't been interested. I did have exchange a few e-mails with some bloke in the buying dept at Watestone's HQ but shortly after I sent him a copy he apparently moved on...

[dovegreyreader]

I've skimmed the first part of your post because I'm reading Thirteen now after seeing it on your list and all I can say is the first 70 pages are cracking.I love the voice of the narrator, felt like I knew him from p1 and that reminds me of the way Chris McEwan writes in The Good Thief's Guide to Amsterdam.Entirely different book of course but yes, shaping up into a great read.

[a certain sinclair]

To break this conceptual circular logjam of lack of retail/wholesale interest/ high street promotion in independent publishers' lists I propose a NATIONAL DAY OF INDEPENDENTS (hell, even the title could stir some interest from The Independent) during which Waterstones, Borders, ALL bookshops (yes, even Smiths) ALL national and regional dailies, ALL TV and radio stations are cajoled, blackmailed, whipped into line (even possibly politely requested) to celebrate and promote the UK's fine stable of independent publishers (and not just fiction and poetry but non-fiction too)for just ONE DAY.Surely not too much to ask the big boys to step aside for just one day? Yes, all very bold, and perhaps a tadge naive - but worth a try. Yes, it would require cabals of independents working together, probably aided and abetted by paid co-ordinators. But as a concept I'm reasonably sure Mr Hewitt at the Arts Council could be persuaded - the Day would cost a snip in the context of other arts lottery funded projects. And, when considering translations, European culture budgets could be lined up. The potential is vast.Book readers clubs, writers' groups, ceative writing courses, libraries - schools etc etc etc -- all co-ordinated to celebrate the independents. The NATIONAL DAY OF INDEPENDENTS - I can visualise Richard & Judy mouthing their introduction now. If the UK as a whole won't go for it I bet Scotland will. The press in the UK needs seriously working on in terms of the general culture coverage and book coverage especially. I'm lucky, I live in Barcelona where we still have a version of the net book agreement in place, where the regional government has recently set up and funded what they call an observatory for books and reading (through which they will be promoting book reading and book buying and negotiating subsidies for school texts and generally keeping a close eye on book buying stats and demographs and sharing that information with libraries and publishers)and where you can make a fairly lucrative living in literary translation but where, most importantly, the press and media still take books, writing and writers with the seriousness deserved. The UK's current World Book Day and Bookbag initiatives (as laudable as they may be) are not enough. And all this because of your review of Thirteen - which I'd never heard of before but which I will seek out. Thanks for your insightful observations.

[David Barnett]

A splendid idea. On the subject of national newspapers doing reviews, I tried in vain to get the Independent, The Times, the Guardian and the Observer to do a review of my book. Of the broadsheets, the Guardian came closest but regretfully declined due to "lack of space for small presses".

The only national who obliged? Bizarre as it may seem, The Sun.

[Steerforth]

As he's a local(ish) author, I'll definitely stock it.