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Vauxhall
1970s London: Young Michael runs past the railway arches and terraces of Vauxhall. Reaching the street on which he lives, he witnesses a young girl fall from a window, her sari floating down behind her. Her lifeless body lies crumpled on the ground.
This incident marks the beginning of a period in which Michael's life threatens to unravel. From his sister's taunts to a series of house fires, police harassment, his parents' crumbling marriage and the realisation that the council intends to clear out the 'slum' he calls home, he learns to navigate his way through an array of obstacles, big and small.
An extraordinary debut novel, Vauxhall tells a warm and hopeful story of a young boy and the city that surrounds him.
Gabriel Gbadamosi is an Irish-Nigerian poet, playwright and essayist born in London. He was AHRC Creative and Performing Arts Fellow at the Pinter Centre, Goldsmiths, and a Judith E. Wilson Fellow for creative writing at Cambridge University. His plays include Shango, Hotel Orpheu and for radio The Long, Hot Summer of '76 (BBC Radio 3), which won the Richard Imison Award. He has presented Night Waves on BBC Radio 3 and Art Beat on the World Service. Vauxhall is his first novel. www.gabrielgbadamosi.com.
This incident marks the beginning of a period in which Michael's life threatens to unravel. From his sister's taunts to a series of house fires, police harassment, his parents' crumbling marriage and the realisation that the council intends to clear out the 'slum' he calls home, he learns to navigate his way through an array of obstacles, big and small.
An extraordinary debut novel, Vauxhall tells a warm and hopeful story of a young boy and the city that surrounds him.
Gabriel Gbadamosi is an Irish-Nigerian poet, playwright and essayist born in London. He was AHRC Creative and Performing Arts Fellow at the Pinter Centre, Goldsmiths, and a Judith E. Wilson Fellow for creative writing at Cambridge University. His plays include Shango, Hotel Orpheu and for radio The Long, Hot Summer of '76 (BBC Radio 3), which won the Richard Imison Award. He has presented Night Waves on BBC Radio 3 and Art Beat on the World Service. Vauxhall is his first novel. www.gabrielgbadamosi.com.
320 pages, Paperback
First published May 6, 2013
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December 29, 2014A social realist novel about life in a mixed-race family in London slums in the late 60s and early 70s. It doesn't have a traditional beginning-middle-and-end plot , though that's not to say that nothing happens: it's a slice of life type thing made up of a series of events experienced by Michael, the youngest of four kids, whilst he's between the ages of about 4 and 10, as the council slum clearance project gradually nears his family home. Movement forwards in time isn't signposted and instead becomes apparent from mentions of seasons, fashions, the news and what Michael is getting up to. Gbadamosi was a poet before he was a novelist and that shows in the structure.
When I read the preview I was struck by the poetic language: beautiful sentences that went straight to the heart of things - I had to read this. By the time I got round to reading the whole book I may have been jaded by reading a lot of contemporary fiction in a short space of time, but these gem-like sentences seemed to become very rare after a couple of chapters. The writing was always pretty good - there were never sentences I wanted to rearrange and the style never annoyed me - but after the early chapters it didn't sparkle: it simply got the job done well.
For a while I was frustrated that the children's adventures - whether Just William type scrapes or being harrassed by racist Gene Hunts of coppers - weren't made to sound a bit more exciting. (It didn't feel like a children's book for adults in the way that The Ocean at the End of the Lane did.) Yet somehow the story grew on me; I don't know whether the narrative became more interesting as Michael grew older, or if I got into the book more. I really warmed to it and found it quite a fast and easy read once I got going. The physical copy helped too: it's so unusual now to find a novel that stays open by itself without effort or spine-crunching. Shame it has one of those increasingly common unlaminated covers, but to handle, and to be able to read hands-off, the copy was excellent.
Michael is one of that much-maligned group, child narrators of adult fiction, though at least he isn't "quirky" or "precocious". You could call him ordinary, but to be Nigerian-Irish circa 1970 was definitely not ordinary and that's the appeal of the story. I prefer the extra perspective and analysis of an adult narrator looking back - as in Tessa Hadley's Clever Girl, whose protagonist is about ten years older than Michael - but the boy's awareness almost imperceptibly increases as the story progresses, making the narrative, to me, more engaging in its second half. This subtle sense of growing up, without overt commentary, is one of the cleverest aspects of Vauxhall.
It isn't a book that appears to project any big ideas other than this is what it was like but it does tell that well. And as a fan of kitchen-sink drama, and someone who can relate to an upbringing that drags you between two cultural identities, I enjoyed it. It's a book that deserves some more publicity as quite a bit of the contemporary litfic audience would probably like it.
When I read the preview I was struck by the poetic language: beautiful sentences that went straight to the heart of things - I had to read this. By the time I got round to reading the whole book I may have been jaded by reading a lot of contemporary fiction in a short space of time, but these gem-like sentences seemed to become very rare after a couple of chapters. The writing was always pretty good - there were never sentences I wanted to rearrange and the style never annoyed me - but after the early chapters it didn't sparkle: it simply got the job done well.
For a while I was frustrated that the children's adventures - whether Just William type scrapes or being harrassed by racist Gene Hunts of coppers - weren't made to sound a bit more exciting. (It didn't feel like a children's book for adults in the way that The Ocean at the End of the Lane did.) Yet somehow the story grew on me; I don't know whether the narrative became more interesting as Michael grew older, or if I got into the book more. I really warmed to it and found it quite a fast and easy read once I got going. The physical copy helped too: it's so unusual now to find a novel that stays open by itself without effort or spine-crunching. Shame it has one of those increasingly common unlaminated covers, but to handle, and to be able to read hands-off, the copy was excellent.
Michael is one of that much-maligned group, child narrators of adult fiction, though at least he isn't "quirky" or "precocious". You could call him ordinary, but to be Nigerian-Irish circa 1970 was definitely not ordinary and that's the appeal of the story. I prefer the extra perspective and analysis of an adult narrator looking back - as in Tessa Hadley's Clever Girl, whose protagonist is about ten years older than Michael - but the boy's awareness almost imperceptibly increases as the story progresses, making the narrative, to me, more engaging in its second half. This subtle sense of growing up, without overt commentary, is one of the cleverest aspects of Vauxhall.
It isn't a book that appears to project any big ideas other than this is what it was like but it does tell that well. And as a fan of kitchen-sink drama, and someone who can relate to an upbringing that drags you between two cultural identities, I enjoyed it. It's a book that deserves some more publicity as quite a bit of the contemporary litfic audience would probably like it.
December 12, 2015
I quite loved Gabriel Gbadamosi's coming-of-age novel, a little boy figuring out his place in his family, his school, and his city as the son of an Irish mother and Nigerian dad. Culture and the racism provoked by the colour of your skin, homelessness and addiction, violent death, the embarrassing things that you do as a child because you just don't know much...
I bought this after doing a walking tour of Vauxhall with Gabriel Gbadamosi (you too should buy it). So I knew I would love it, and recognise some of the stories -- it did take me too long to get to this book. I've been watching a lot of Trümmerfilm or rubble films, (like The Third Man (Reed 1949), and Passport to Pimlico (Cornelius 1949)), and then reading Stuart Dybek on the tearing down of his Chicago neighborhood after declaring it 'blighted' and remembering Marshall Berman describing the Bronx and my many years of struggle in LA and the stories I heard from urban renewal's heyday.
It struck me how urban renewal resulted in the same kinds of landscapes as WWII, and it struck me that exploring that would be a really good little article. Bombs and war are a different level of violence and terror and death, why then do we recreate its landscapes for profit? It might capture a little of my ever renewed store of fury over people being forced from homes they love and have invested in. I remembered this book, and it did indeed have both bomb damage and the council's slum-clearing damage and underlined that this losing of home, especially as a child, is something you never quite get over.
How many thousands of children are experiencing this at the moment, because we are bombing them...it breaks my heart. I wish I believed an article would stop bombs and urban renewal and evictions, but it can't be bad for people to feel these things, get a sense of how they might connect.
So from Vauxhall -- first there is growing up where bomb damage is taken for granted:
The feeling of the landscape as more houses begin to come down one by one (This row of houses is just where Vauxhall Park is now, and you would never know it):
What it is like to lose your neighbours, your best friends:
I'm just going to slip this one quote in here, this specific non-rubble related quote, because I love this bit just as I would have run down always to the Thames....
And so to end with this...the whys and the how-it-feels and the anger and the resignation, and a very creepy echo of my own thinking before reading this book that the results of urban renewal and bombing aren't all that different:
I bought this after doing a walking tour of Vauxhall with Gabriel Gbadamosi (you too should buy it). So I knew I would love it, and recognise some of the stories -- it did take me too long to get to this book. I've been watching a lot of Trümmerfilm or rubble films, (like The Third Man (Reed 1949), and Passport to Pimlico (Cornelius 1949)), and then reading Stuart Dybek on the tearing down of his Chicago neighborhood after declaring it 'blighted' and remembering Marshall Berman describing the Bronx and my many years of struggle in LA and the stories I heard from urban renewal's heyday.
It struck me how urban renewal resulted in the same kinds of landscapes as WWII, and it struck me that exploring that would be a really good little article. Bombs and war are a different level of violence and terror and death, why then do we recreate its landscapes for profit? It might capture a little of my ever renewed store of fury over people being forced from homes they love and have invested in. I remembered this book, and it did indeed have both bomb damage and the council's slum-clearing damage and underlined that this losing of home, especially as a child, is something you never quite get over.
How many thousands of children are experiencing this at the moment, because we are bombing them...it breaks my heart. I wish I believed an article would stop bombs and urban renewal and evictions, but it can't be bad for people to feel these things, get a sense of how they might connect.
So from Vauxhall -- first there is growing up where bomb damage is taken for granted:
Brian was pulling back the corrugated iron on the bombsite that was blocked off round by the pub. We didn't play in there because it was dangerous and could fall in on top of you. (64)
'Lucky it wasn't a bomb,' Brian said, and shrugged.
'A bomb?'
'It's a bomb site.'
It took a while to sink in. A bombsite was a playground, a rough place you could play in between the houses -- when you could get in past the corrugated iron. I didn't know it was the place where a bomb fell. No one told me there was a bomb under there. Until it burst in my head, and the ground went out under my feet. (69)
The feeling of the landscape as more houses begin to come down one by one (This row of houses is just where Vauxhall Park is now, and you would never know it):
It was half dark, the light was going. We looked round at the rubble of broken bricks from the house that wasn't there any more, at the gaping hole that was full of rubbish people had thrown out. The empty space between the walls had tall weeds growing up into it. We were on our own. (87)
What it is like to lose your neighbours, your best friends:
After I while I passed his house and it was like only I knew anyone ever lived there. It was like a bomb had hit it and everyone had gone, and it was just the walls standing. It was dark and it felt dead, but I still had to get up and walk past it on my way to school and come back, past all the bomb sites where people used to live but no one knew who they were any more. (93)
I'm just going to slip this one quote in here, this specific non-rubble related quote, because I love this bit just as I would have run down always to the Thames....
Everyone told us not to go down by the Thames. Manus said the scaly fish wrapped round the lamp posts would come alive if the water splashed them, they were dredged up from the bottom, that's why they were black. They had open eyes and fleshy mouths that dripped and glistened in the rain...
'Dont go down to the river.'
'All right, Mum.'
The way down was dank and slippery, and I was always down there where it opened on to a bend in the river...Everyone said don't go, but there river pulled you. (145)
And so to end with this...the whys and the how-it-feels and the anger and the resignation, and a very creepy echo of my own thinking before reading this book that the results of urban renewal and bombing aren't all that different:
It was like the houses had been eaten from the inside. they just had the wall of them facing the street with the sky through the windows. And then they knocked that down.
'Like a bomb hit it,' a man said, passing by in the street as my dad was locking the front door. My mum was beside me putting her coat on and looking up at the flattened houses -- you could see through to the back of the school playground. Bits of brick wall were standing, but the houses just weren't there any more. And they'd knocked down the first two houses on the corner of our street next to the bomb site.
'The council,' my dad said over his shoulder.
'Why?' The man paused on his way and shook his head, 'Because the got outside loos?'
My dad shrugged, putting the keys in his pocket, 'They want the land. Big Ben is just there.'
'We're being slum cleared,' Manus said. (205)
June 27, 2017
I'm not big on verbose reviews so I will say this: stunning, unique, evocative, dreamlike, and somehow manages to be heartbreaking and heartwarming, sometimes simultaneously.
August 1, 2018
3.5 stars
September 16, 2015
This is another series of vignettes that are in chronological order, rather than a story-proper. Micheal is a poor mixed-race boy in Vauxhall in the 1960s and 70s. His district is being taken over for re-development and we trace his family as the neighborhood slowly dwindles.
I think my favorite part of the narration was that Micheal just doesn’t always get it. So often child narrators present the story with adult biases and perspectives. Gbadamosi does not do this. Micheal is frequently confused by the rules of the games (like with the Penny for a Guy) as well as misunderstanding the adult problems: “These people could put my dad in prison and I’d been showing off that I could count.”
At the same time, I was confused about Micheal’s actual age. He is the youngest of the four and oftentimes I figured he was about 7 or 8, but Busola (Kat) was only a few years older and many times she presented as early to mid-teens (14 or 15), especially when discussing sexual topics.
Certainly these kids are aware of many adult topics (race, war, immigration) but most prevalant was death. The book opens and closes with the Indian girl’s suicidal jump, but along the way several animals die, a homeless woman freezes to death, Tunde also jumps to his death, another friend (this one middle class) attempts suicide, Thaddeus drowns, Emily’s Dad and Micheal’s Grandpa die (right smack on top of each other) and Errol Clark is murdered. Other than murder-mysteries or a war history I think the tally of 8 deaths in such a short novel might be a record for my have-read shelf. And yet, the tone of the story is one of hope and change.
Gbadamosi presents a great coming-of-age in London poverty and not only addresses all of these complex topics well but with flair. His language is a bit over the top sometimes (slightly masturbatory), but then he has passages like: “the long, empty afternoons of the summer holidays that end with you turning to stare sunblind down on the ground at the length of your own shadow” that perfectly describe both a feeling and an atmosphere.
Overall this is not a happy book and it is not an easy book to read, but it is important because it provides a humane picture of an often overlooked segment of the population.
I think my favorite part of the narration was that Micheal just doesn’t always get it. So often child narrators present the story with adult biases and perspectives. Gbadamosi does not do this. Micheal is frequently confused by the rules of the games (like with the Penny for a Guy) as well as misunderstanding the adult problems: “These people could put my dad in prison and I’d been showing off that I could count.”
At the same time, I was confused about Micheal’s actual age. He is the youngest of the four and oftentimes I figured he was about 7 or 8, but Busola (Kat) was only a few years older and many times she presented as early to mid-teens (14 or 15), especially when discussing sexual topics.
Certainly these kids are aware of many adult topics (race, war, immigration) but most prevalant was death. The book opens and closes with the Indian girl’s suicidal jump, but along the way several animals die, a homeless woman freezes to death, Tunde also jumps to his death, another friend (this one middle class) attempts suicide, Thaddeus drowns, Emily’s Dad and Micheal’s Grandpa die (right smack on top of each other) and Errol Clark is murdered. Other than murder-mysteries or a war history I think the tally of 8 deaths in such a short novel might be a record for my have-read shelf. And yet, the tone of the story is one of hope and change.
Gbadamosi presents a great coming-of-age in London poverty and not only addresses all of these complex topics well but with flair. His language is a bit over the top sometimes (slightly masturbatory), but then he has passages like: “the long, empty afternoons of the summer holidays that end with you turning to stare sunblind down on the ground at the length of your own shadow” that perfectly describe both a feeling and an atmosphere.
Overall this is not a happy book and it is not an easy book to read, but it is important because it provides a humane picture of an often overlooked segment of the population.
June 29, 2013
No doubt I was influenced by meeting Gabriel and hearing him read, but regardless I'm sure I would have enjoyed his debut novel.
The young narrator, growing up in a mixed race family in Vauxhall in the 70s, takes us through scenes and situations in an order they would happen rather than a traditional chronology of narrative. There's challenges of mixed race, poverty, politics, schoolyard bullying, religion, family...real life.
I like a book that doesn't patronise the reader, and building on his experience as a poet and a playwright, Gabriel Gbadamosi tells us this powerful story in an intelligent and delicate way.
The young narrator, growing up in a mixed race family in Vauxhall in the 70s, takes us through scenes and situations in an order they would happen rather than a traditional chronology of narrative. There's challenges of mixed race, poverty, politics, schoolyard bullying, religion, family...real life.
I like a book that doesn't patronise the reader, and building on his experience as a poet and a playwright, Gabriel Gbadamosi tells us this powerful story in an intelligent and delicate way.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews