"I’d made a pretty major move… but I bet there isn't anyone on this planet that hasn't, at some point, just wanted to stop the world a while, and step off…"
Things aren't going too well for Mark. His once-best friend has just jumped from a 20th floor window, and he realises that he too is misfiring his way through "the wrong life". Listing in the wake of his old pal's funeral, he turns to chain-smoking and tearing up beer-mats as a way of covering up the cracks, the silences, the fact that he's not on the property ladder yet. But it's not enough. What follows is a weird and wonderful ride of sing-alongs, "top sounds" and finding soulmates on public transport.
Somehow Mark finds himself house-sitting for a sleazeball acquaintance from way back when, from a place where people stay 'long-lost' for a reason. Floating on autopilot around an alienating London, Mark is surrounded by the great achievements of others, from Lord Nelson and Dame Ellen MacArthur to his scurrilous Easy Street neighbours. But this isn't a book about individual success. Instead it's about finding consolation and solidarity in the strangest of places. There's a spirited gang of lads who find safety staying out on the streets all night, a loveable corner-shop owner, and a Japanese international student with desires on self-destruction.
What I liked about the novel is the way it balances life's little niggles – direct debits, shocking music collections, the North-South divide – with the bigger questions. It reads like an urban fantasia: one of unexpected fairy-godmothers, where random acts of kindness interlink with meditations on mortality, and Samurai teachings meet floodlit cricket in the park. And it's not afraid of painting in darker tones, either.
There's a meandering, fantastical element to Mark's thought-patterns: from a Friday night search for Mr. Benn on the Piccadilly Line to the idea of the entire Philharmonic Orchestra on a fishing trip. These child-like enthusiasms lend a warmth to our often self-deprecating narrator, those of a daydreamer up against a nightmarish real world.
It's a loopy rough-book stream-of-consciousness scribble through the world, through music, through writing, just trying to make sense of it all. And it's definitely worth the read.
Responses to James Hogg’s Review of Soothing Music for Stray Cats: “A life needs a little shape, that’s all.”
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