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Midlands
Two stories from the centre of Europe.
Midlands tells a story in two parts. In Part One , comedian Stuart Holmes , famous in his adopted homeland of Germany, is preparing for a corporate engagement in Hamburg. He finds himself drawn into memories of a weekend tour several years previously with his friend Dougie McCallum across Southwest Germany. Dougie’s and Stuart’s tour is retold in flashbacks; they drink, they joke, and may or may not have a threesome. Stuart recalls the artistic failure and mental health collapse of his university days that inspired his move to Germany.
Part Two begins in Berlin in the early 2010s. Local micro-celebrity Dave Benson , author of ‘The Misanthrope’s Digest,’ a daily blog collating bad news from around the world, is bracing himself for another Prussian winter and mourning his broken engagement. Then he receives an email from his former fiancée Anna Berry , a wry and ambitious young Midwestern American now returned to Chicago, U.S.A., inviting him to meet once again in Luxembourg, where Anna is visiting on business.
Midlands is a novel about love, comedy, growing up and living abroad. It is a coming-of-age story and a funny comic novel too.
James Harris has written for The Spectator, The New European and JewThink, and has been a stand-up comedian for twenty years across Europe. This is his debut novel.
The book has also been supplied with 12 beautiful illustrations by the graphic artist Ke Zuo.
Midlands tells a story in two parts. In Part One , comedian Stuart Holmes , famous in his adopted homeland of Germany, is preparing for a corporate engagement in Hamburg. He finds himself drawn into memories of a weekend tour several years previously with his friend Dougie McCallum across Southwest Germany. Dougie’s and Stuart’s tour is retold in flashbacks; they drink, they joke, and may or may not have a threesome. Stuart recalls the artistic failure and mental health collapse of his university days that inspired his move to Germany.
Part Two begins in Berlin in the early 2010s. Local micro-celebrity Dave Benson , author of ‘The Misanthrope’s Digest,’ a daily blog collating bad news from around the world, is bracing himself for another Prussian winter and mourning his broken engagement. Then he receives an email from his former fiancée Anna Berry , a wry and ambitious young Midwestern American now returned to Chicago, U.S.A., inviting him to meet once again in Luxembourg, where Anna is visiting on business.
Midlands is a novel about love, comedy, growing up and living abroad. It is a coming-of-age story and a funny comic novel too.
James Harris has written for The Spectator, The New European and JewThink, and has been a stand-up comedian for twenty years across Europe. This is his debut novel.
The book has also been supplied with 12 beautiful illustrations by the graphic artist Ke Zuo.
451 pages, Paperback
Published June 6, 2022
About the author
James Harris
389 books3 followersLibrarian Note:
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There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.
This profile may contain books from multiple authors of this name.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
March 19, 2023
Midlands is a must read for anyone who is or has been a struggling stand up comedian, spoken word poet or musician performing at small venues for pocket money. The author James Harris sums it up beautifully in the following sentence: ” … the grotty, itinerant life of dive bars and endless travel and having your mind on pause all afternoon to prepare a twenty-minute working day.” It’s a delight to follow the sometimes very male British comedians Stuart and Dougie on their tour of Germany. The writing has a documentary quality to it as you get backstage with the comedians in more ways than one.
Midlands is also a must read for anyone who feels trapped between two cultures. These days you might automatically think of refugees and immigration, but the people Harris portrays have voluntarily left their mother country and tongue – by chance or by a desire for adventure. He does this portraying with great accuracy, pointing out differences in culture between England and Germany. An Englishman who has spent a decade in Germany still tries to get into a car at the ”wrong side” and there are endless examples of the German efficiency and their lack of humour.
In the second part of the book the culture clash isn’t so much between England and Germany as between Europe and the U.S. A couple in their thirties break up because the woman, an American, wants to live in her country of birth and the man is homesick for Europe where he’s allowed to be sad for real. This quirky character, Dave, even writes a newsletter called The Misanthropes’s digest. The couple break up and re-unite for a weekend in Luxemburg and tells the tale of complicated love.
You could claim that Midlands consists of two novellas or very long short stories, but Harris has cleverly build a bridge between those stories by inserting a prologue, an interval and and an epilogue. In the later, Stuart and Dave turn out to be friends. Those characters are somehow alike, more of observers than part takers in life, being a bit cautious, clinging on to dreams and a touch of nostalgia. The reading experience leaves me with a warm feeling and a smile, especially when I think back to the interval that describes an open mic night in Berlin where ”everything happens” but no one will really get anywhere. Some people are happy to just be famous in their local pub.
Midlands is also a must read for anyone who feels trapped between two cultures. These days you might automatically think of refugees and immigration, but the people Harris portrays have voluntarily left their mother country and tongue – by chance or by a desire for adventure. He does this portraying with great accuracy, pointing out differences in culture between England and Germany. An Englishman who has spent a decade in Germany still tries to get into a car at the ”wrong side” and there are endless examples of the German efficiency and their lack of humour.
In the second part of the book the culture clash isn’t so much between England and Germany as between Europe and the U.S. A couple in their thirties break up because the woman, an American, wants to live in her country of birth and the man is homesick for Europe where he’s allowed to be sad for real. This quirky character, Dave, even writes a newsletter called The Misanthropes’s digest. The couple break up and re-unite for a weekend in Luxemburg and tells the tale of complicated love.
You could claim that Midlands consists of two novellas or very long short stories, but Harris has cleverly build a bridge between those stories by inserting a prologue, an interval and and an epilogue. In the later, Stuart and Dave turn out to be friends. Those characters are somehow alike, more of observers than part takers in life, being a bit cautious, clinging on to dreams and a touch of nostalgia. The reading experience leaves me with a warm feeling and a smile, especially when I think back to the interval that describes an open mic night in Berlin where ”everything happens” but no one will really get anywhere. Some people are happy to just be famous in their local pub.
Displaying 1 of 1 review