Good New Writing

Simon at The Evening News gave me a copy of Blackmoor by Edward Hogan. Usually the only decent books I get sent to write about are published by Serpent’s Tail. My stint at the paper was fairly short because one can’t write for free forever, but anyway, Simon plonked this book in front of me. “Try that,” he said, or some such. About an hour later he called across our office space, “How is it?”

“Actually, rather brilliant,” I replied. Great, I thought. He’s going to think I’m a sucker who’d say that about anything. He’ll suspect it’s really shit like most of the books sent to magazines and that I wouldn’t know a good novel if it smacked me around the chops after being frozen into a block of ice.

I couldn’t say anything else though, because it is a really wonderful first novel. I thought I’d post my little piece here.


Blackmoor
Edward Hogan
(£11.99, Simon & Schuster)



Despite the course’s international reputation for excellence, a Creative Writing MA from UEA does not give budding authors a free pass to a publishing deal. Most go on to be teachers, pleasure-seekers, backpackers and media hopefuls. Graduate Edward Hogan, now teaching English to college students in London, is rare in his success, joining the likes of Trezza Azzopardi, Andrew Cowan and Tracy Chevalier as victorious alumni. The bulk of Blackmoor, published by Simon & Schuster this summer, was written whilst Hogan resided in the Golden Triangle. Four years later, can he remember Norwich?
“I lived on Havelock Road, in a little terrace house. It was a box room with a mattress on the floor. I drank at The Mitre pub – probably the only person who did. I used to go running up by the university, in Eaton Park. And I worked in a baguette shop near the market – Baguette Express. They let me be a pot washer. It was my job to wash all the pig fat down the sink...”
Hogan’s dogged sense of place results in Blackmoor having a broodingly gothic power. “I’m from Derbyshire and I wanted a chance to explore my roots,” he explains. “Previously I had visited the communities but didn’t know about the injustices. When you live around Derbyshire you see the signs mining still has on the region – poverty, unemployment and addiction.”
Blackmoor tells the story of a partially sighted albino, Beth, and how she is ostracised when strange explosions due to rogue gases trapped in the mines coincide with her puerperal psychosis – postnatal depression – and subsequent bizarre behaviour. The community recoils from her otherworldly presence, isolating her with their superstitious scaremongering. “There was a real place called Arkwright which had to be demolished because of explosive gases seeping from the pit works,” says Hogan. Methane was leaking into houses and the village had to be moved.
On the effects of mining, Hogan is clued up, but how does a 28 year-old Mitre enthusiast write authentically about motherhood?
“Well, I know a lot of women. Making my characters real is the most important thing to me. Writing forces you to try to understand other people; besides, I wouldn’t want to write about myself – boring.
“Of course there is some of myself in it. You pick up details and memories; things that happened to yourself and others. Like when Beth’s son Vincent says, ‘When I was a woman,’ – my brother actually said that when he was little.”
Hogan’s sense of responsibility to his family helped motivate him to do the UEA Creative Writing MA. “I thought I’d better justify all the writing I was doing by making it official – doing something proper. I won the David Higham award and got £5,000 which made a difference.”
Living in London means that whatever the word is on the street regarding the state of the publishing industry, Hogan is optimistic that people are still buying novels. “Everyone’s reading on public transport,” he says. “But I would write even if getting published wasn’t part of it. If it was a popularity contest you’d play football or something, but if you love writing, do it. You have to enjoy the process because the material rewards aren’t that great…”
Already touted as comparable to the Brontës and D. H. Lawrence, Hogan’s prospects look better than most.
“You once said Blackmoor killed Mum,” says Vincent to his father.
It might be said that Norwich helped launch Edward Hogan.