Indecent Acts

by Nick Brooks

A glorious exploration of working class consciousness, family ties and tensions, memory, misadventure, and redemption An extraordinary tour de force of working class fiction, this is a blackly comic, moving tale of real lives, misadventures, and family. Reported entirely by the protagonist, Grace, a semi-literate 40-something mother, the novel is soaked in humor and empathy as we follow her precarious family life. Grace cares for Sean, her grandson, and Vincent, her son, who wants to join the army. She lives in fear that Francis, her drug addict daughter and mother to Sean, will come back and take the boy away from her. In the spirit of The True History of the Kelly Gang by Peter Carey, the book is written in Grace's inimitable patois, with often hilarious and moving effect.

288 pages, Paperback

First published April 7, 2014

Reviews

[Kate · Rating 5 out of 5]

Grace Barker lets folk around her think she's stupid, because it's easier. But within a couple of pages, the reader knows Grace is not stupid at all. She might not write 'proper' or see well, but she's one clever woman. In life, Grace has worked out that managing memory is the way to survive family and she's been holding it together in circumstances that would break most others. But the the past is pushing its way up to the surface and for once, Grace is letting it through. Will the consequences be worth it?

Stunning wit and piercing wisdom are woven through every page of Grace's inimitable narrative. Brooks' talents for prose, and a meaty plot delivered subtly, are immense in this book that feels as real as a documentary. It's a sobering (literally) evocation of the effects of poverty, with Grace and her family lumbering like off-kilter planets, orbiting each other's chaos.

Brooks includes a couple of characters who point skilfully to Glasgow's cheek-by-jowl class differences, but he doesn't hector us with it. Every character rings with authenticity and he's penned the best grief-recovery-meeting-in-a-church-hall you're ever likely to read (or attend)!

The big questions are tackled head on in this work - to what extent are we, as adults, agents in our own life, and to what extent are lives determined by the choices the adults around us made, in our early years. There's a time in all our lives when we no longer have to be our childhood - this is Grace's.

I was thinking about Grace Barker for days after I finished this book; she taught me a thing or two...

[Gretel · Rating 2 out of 5]

Nick Brooks's third novel Indecent Acts is narrated by forty-something semi-literate and partially sighted Glaswegian Grace. It is written in her unique patois which is sometimes funny to read, but sometimes irritating. Grace hasn't had the easiest life and she has just missed her holiday to Port Adventura (Fuerteventura) and she can't stop thinking about her good glasses going round and around on the baggage carousel. The truth about her life is slowly revealed and it becomes clear why the novel is called what it is. I can't help but have the feeling that this book ticks a lot of boxes to be 'poverty porn'.