Crusaders

by Richard T. Kelly

In 1996, just before the rise of New Labour, Reverend Gore returns to his native Newcastle charged with planting a new church in one of the city's rougher estates. As he settles into the local community, he becomes involved with Stevie, a local 'security consultant', Lindy, a street-wise single mother, and Martin, an ambitious local Labour MP. But these relationships draw Gore into a moral crisis in this extraordinary debut novel, driven by sharp social observation, darkly desperate humour and an undercurrent of impending violence.

Genres: Fiction

560 pages, Paperback

First published July 31, 2008

Reviews

[Bill · Rating 2 out of 5]

The blurb on the cover of this book says it is "the great British novel of this decade". I would beg to differ, that is a gross overstatement. There are three main characters in this novel; an Anglican clergyman, a thug, and a politician.Of course their stories intermingle.While it is somewhat interesting seeing how politics comes into play with religion,overall there is just too much politics for my taste. I realize many people like political novels, I'm just not one of them. Too be quite honest, I find them boring, so slogging through 540 pages of this book was quite a chore.

[F.R. · Rating 3 out of 5]

It’s interesting reading this directly after ‘The Line of Beauty’ as that was a novel of Thatcherism which actually included a cameo from the lady herself, while this is a novel of Blairism with young Tone given a brief appearance.

In this tale of grim life oop north, compromise is the predominant theme. John Gore is a young Anglican Priest going back home to the North East to raise the church, but finding himself compromised by his choice of helpers. In addition there’s a Geordie hardman who’s made his own compromises about selling drugs, and (most Blair of all) a North East MP who’s sold out his previous socialist convictions to make himself electable. In addition there’s a lot about how the CofE modernises itself and whether trying to fit in with the modern society – as Gore tries to do – is a compromise of the Bible.

So we have politics, religion and the North East – all great touchstones for Anthony Charles Lynton Blair. But this book does not come down in favour of him. Yes, he turned the labour party around – but at what cost? Everything this book perceives as compromised is badly tarnished (even if not compromising is often portrayed as just as bad) and Blair – or at least his various stand-ins – are, for all their righteousness, poseurs and hypocrites.

(This book is set slightly before Blair became PM, but published in 2008 so after Gordon had kicked him out of the job. Therefore it’s impossible not to look at it in terms of Tony’s time in office. Obliquely it hints at his foolishness in getting involved in an illegal war, but certainly it comments on how the party of Atlee and Bevan could end up being “intensely relaxed about people getting filthy rich”.)

There are a lot of different strands in ‘The Crusaders’, but most of them never really come together. With the ending going for cheap melodrama rather than trying to answer the questions it raises, I’m still pondering what point the author is trying to get at. Of course it’s never right to criticise a book for having too much ambition, but this one really does take the reader up a hill with no idea how to get back down again.

[Susan]

Makes "Grim Grin" look like a happy camper. Ah, the internal and external soot of Northern England!

[Benjamin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Set in 1996 our three main characters are: John Gore, thirties, who is embarking on his first major assignment as C of E minister planting a new church in a disadvantaged district of Newcastle; Martin Pallister, early forties, the up and coming Labour candidate; each man an active labour supporter from his youth. The third man is Stevie Coulson, a once slight lad from a broken family, now a heavyweight in more sense than one, a local thug with his own entourage of similarly muscle-bound followers.

The three men come together as Coulson and Pallister individually lend their support to Gore’s new venture. The story revolves as much around Gore’s new church as Pallister’s political activities and Coulson’s underworld dealings; and inevitably involves their respective private lives.

This is a vast story, and told as much in flash back as in the present and perhaps this is where this mammoth undertaking begins to become unwieldy. With three men to follow, the flash backs are all over the place, from the very recent past to the distant past, in no particular order.

I found the characters, while interesting and very well-developed, difficult to respect. They may be determined in their ideals, but does the end justify the means? Gore especially is problematic here, and his unlikely alliances raise far-reaching questions. So does his behaviour with Lindy, the tarty, and surely inappropriate woman for a minister, he takes up with and jumps into bed with at the first opportunity; can one have respect for a man who supposedly upholds the morals of the church yet readily disregards them in his private life? What it comes down to is that I want truly to like at least one of the protagonists in the story; I don’t demand perfection in him, but at least integrity.

Its claim to being "The Great British Novel of This Decade" is another matter. I often found myself struggling with it, struggling to maintain interest. Far too much detail laboriously presented at times, inevitably it holds up the narrative. I also had problems with the standard of writing; does neither Mr Kelly nor his editors know how to use pronouns? Errors such as this cropped up time and again: “it was books, of all things, that helped he and Martin stay pals”, such prissy misuse of the pronoun jars to say the least, and ruins any involvement with the narrative.

This is a brave attempt, but if my interest is to be maintained throughout such a momentous journey I need something more to grasp, a better reason than merely to find out what ultimately transpires, I want to empathise with the characters; I could not do so here.

[JS · Rating 2 out of 5]

This has moments of being good but feels like a mashup of ‘Get Carter’ and ‘Stormy Monday’, without the energy and tightness of either. No character is likeable, and the considerable dialogue gets tiresome. The conclusion is ludicrous and not very clear. The language used is full of readable Geordie vernacular, but it comes off the rails at times when situations are being described, with arcane words cropping up such as ‘dubiety’ and ‘contumely’; who says ‘abed’ for being ‘in bed’; who would say a shooter in a school goes ‘strafing’ and what the hell is ‘The Masturbatory Tendency’ that gets mentioned twice (‘On the wrong side of the Masturbatory Tendency’)? Worse still are the sex scenes which are comical: ‘On her bedside table lay the wilted latex sheath, his semen bagged and knotted like kitchen leavings’ (leavings!), ‘the stone in his groin dissolved into hers’ and ‘a well-reckoned but long-suppressed uncoiling of desire’. ‘Coppery delta’ for pubic hair….

I know it’s a first novel and has an impressive sweep, but it needed greater editorial control from Faber.

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

An underestimated politically charged state-of-the-nation novel, 'Crusaders' obviously has its roots in Victorian and nineteenth century fiction (I kept being reminded of George Eliot, at least in terms of the book's ambitions and G.B. Shaw in terms of its persistent exposure of compromise and moral convolution), but it infuses this with a modern cynicism (David Peace meets 'Our Friends in the North'). 'Robert Elsmere' it ain't...the Rev. Gore is a figure caught, as so many literary clergymen before him, between the Scylla of the spirit and the Charybdis of the flesh, while the supporting cast of more-or-less grotesque Geordies show us that Tony Blair had his work cut out to turn Newcastle into a part of 'Cool Britannia'. It's a novel whose ambitions outrun its achievement on several fronts - the dialogue can be leaden, the moral dilemmas are really old (communion) wine in new bottles, and the violent backdrop deserved a novel of its own. However, it remains a sincere and at times compelling novel which justifies its considerable length through its general refusal to take the easy option. Yes, the ending is a touch melodramatic but for once, I did care for the characters and understand the complexities of their various positions.

[Ipswichblade · Rating 4 out of 5]

In 1996, just before the rise of New Labour, Reverend Gore returns to his native Newcastle charged with planting a new church in one of the city's rougher estates. As he settles into the local community, he becomes involved with Stevie, a local 'security consultant', Lindy, a street-wise single mother, and Martin, an ambitious local Labour MP. But these relationships draw Gore into a moral crisis in this extraordinary debut novel, driven by sharp social observation, darkly desperate humour and an undercurrent of impending violence.

I thought this book was superb, well written and even though over 500 pages an absolute treat to read. The characters are well described and I had a mental picture of all the main players which I always think is a sign of well thought out and written book. None of the subjects tackled in the book are easy even the part around building a new church never mind the gangland violence but Kelly does it with confidence and the story moves form scene to scene very smoothly. All in all an excellent if sometimes harsh (due to subject matter) read which put me in mind of the Red Riding series of books by David Peace

[Karen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Repulsed by Brookmyre's self-serving, murderous religious nuts, I was keen to restore my faith via an altogether more palatable Christian role model. As is inevitable, though, the Rev John Gore cannot help but disappoint, despite his best intentions. He is a human being after all, and a well-written one at that, and the world he inhabits is a complex, unpleasant one.



I was prepared for this but I wasn't quite prepared for the seriousness of tone. It wasn't without humour entirely but what there was was scarce, and very black. Hence my break in the middle for a bit of chick-lit fluff (see previous review). It did the job: I attacked the second half with relish.



The end of the story, told in the form of official reports and a letter, is beautifully and poignantly handled. And I began to understand my minister's oft-repeated musing that if he hadn't taken up the dog collar, he'd have taken up politics.

[Neale Rigg · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lot of effort for a state-of-the-nation (eh?) epic that somewhat disappointed. Set in my native north-east, the initial joy of recognisable locations and dialect soon gave way to boredom as the story hurtled at terrifying leg-speeds towards an ultimately predictable conclusion. Must have also been a contender for the Bad Sex in Fiction award. Still, admired its ambition, and as it's his debut novel, I'll give the guy an extra star for effort.

[Lee · Rating 2 out of 5]

I found this book heavy-going. There's no doubt that the themes are important, but the serious tone, and lack of editing count against the novel, and it was a chore to get through it. Part of the problem is that so much of the novel is made up of dialogue, and often not very interesting dialogue, so it take considerable effort to keep track of what's going on.

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

A foul mouthed book about an erring and inadequate priest hopelessly 0ut of his depth. But the plot is well held together and the characters are believable, though a priest would be unlikely to (a) speak and (b) do what John Gore does.