Sugar and Rum

by Barry Unsworth

A "powerfully done" ( Times Literary Supplement ) and tantalizingly semi-autobiographical novel from the author of the Booker Prize-winning Sacred Hunger . Unable to work on his novel about Liverpool's slave trade, Benson is teaching creative writing and wandering the city. The pupils who bring him their fantasies are a sad, dispossessed group with varying degrees of literary talent. Caught up in a series of bizarre events, Benson nevertheless finds his own imagination sparked by an encounter with two old army colleagues: Thompson, down-and-out and homeless; and Slater, a fabulously wealthy entrepreneur. In trying to heal old wounds, Benson unleashes a plan that just may blow up in his face. "There is a violent resolution to this obsessive and provocative novel that examines the abscesses and abysses beneath the violence of urban life and offers a quixotic personal answer." ― The Times [London] "Fine descriptive writing and spirited humanity." ― The Guardian Published for the first time in the United States Booker Prize-winning author of Sacred Hunger

Genres: Fiction, British Literature

258 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1988

About the author

Barry Unsworth was an English writer known for his historical fiction. He published 17 novels, and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize three times, winning once for the 1992 novel Sacred Hunger.

Reviews

[Pamela · Rating 4 out of 5]

This novel takes place in Liverpool in the late 1980s, written back then as well. Benson, the main character, is a writer and stuck on his latest book. He walks aimlessly about town and strikes up conversations with just about anyone on subjects that are quite odd to discuss with a stranger. Benson sees metaphors and meanings in things that likely are not there and how this relates to him he talks about with anybody.

Benson also has a consulting business helping out other writers, the fictioneers he calls them. There are passages of these fictional writings that he helps to improve and get them unstuck.

After a while the book settles into almost a plot, after Benson runs into an old army buddy. His service during WWII comes into play with reminiscences and reliving some of the anguish.

The book is very solidly about Liverpool, the past as part of Benson’s book he’s trying to write, and also the present, with the results of years of Thatcherism, the city’s decay, the unemployed and disaffected youths with no prospects.

This book is said to be fairly autobiographical. Perhaps Unsworth had writer’s block for the story he wanted to write (about Liverpool and the slave trade) and instead he ended up writing this one, about his war experiences and helping other’s with their fiction work. I haven’t read any of his work before, but he seems like a writer that know his craft.

Book rating: 3.75

[El · Rating 2 out of 5]

Interestingly this story about a man suffering from writer's block made me realize that I seem to be suffering from reader's block. I managed to sit through the entire book but it didn't excite me which was a shame. I wanted to be excited, dammit.

Benson is the formerly-popular writer-narrator here. His plan is to write about the slave trade in Liverpool but, as previously stated, he has a bit of writer's block at the moment. To help make ends meet he forms a group of wanna-be-writers ("The Fictioneers") and helps them in their individual quests to become writers. Benson becomes progressively wrapped up in the lives and situations of his students in what the back of the book describes as a "dark yet comical novel". Dark, yes. Comical, not as much. But it's already been determined that my literary comedy radar is often turned off.

When I worked in a bookstore I used to see Unsworth's Sacred Hunger and Morality Play regularly. For whatever reason I never read them, probably figuring that I would be a book wrangler for the rest of my life and there was all the time in the world. That was like five years ago. I no longer work in a bookstore, sadly, and even now when I visit the store and walk out with a new stack of books, I never manage to think about including Unsworth. Maybe it's because I don't know anyone who has read him, which is lame because I'm usually the one who reads authors no one I know has read. So strike that option off the list.

In any case, I finally did read Unsworth, though I went with a title that I didn't even recognize from my bookstore days. I would hope that his other books are more interesting. I can see he knows his craft, his skill is evident on every page. But he never managed to really grab hold of my attention which is a real deal-breaker for me. So... moral of the story is... maybe one day I'll read another book by Unsworth. But I'm not in any hurry. If you've read him and think I should give him another try, please speak up.

[James Henderson · Rating 4 out of 5]

You know that a novel will focus on the dark side of life when it opens on a February day in Liverpool. Even though the weather briefly turns mild the scene is set and the narrator, Benson (undoubtedly a stand in for the author) is a teacher of creative writing whose own writing project is at a standstill. Unsworth has an uncanny ability to create a fictional world that keeps the reader interested, even as events seem to become a bit bizarre, in what will happen and why. I enjoyed this novel, written just before he published his great novel, Sacred Hunger.

[Veronica · Rating 3 out of 5]

Barry Unsworth was a very good writer and his skill with words is definitely on display here. That said, the plot, such as it is, was rather weird and disjointed. Benson, the main character, is blocked in his writing of a novel about the Liverpool slave trade (cf Sacred Hunger) and is more or less making ends meet by providing "literary consultancy" to aspiring writers. Some of the extracts from these fictioneers' works in progress are very entertaining, as are Benson's encounters with odd Liverpool characters. Mingled with this are flashbacks to his experiences at the Anzio beachead in 1944, and the whole thing concludes with a comedy-drama act of revenge on his commanding officer from that time, now a wealthy banker.

All in all, a strange kind of novel and definitely not on a par with his masterpiece Sacred Hunger -- nor intended to be. But it kept me entertained with its odd mixture of comedy and grimness.

[richard · Rating 3 out of 5]

It started well, and I like the idea that a washed-up writer would be so prone to constant talking and theorizing that he'd have to talk to the homeless to guarantee his audience. I like it, but don't quite believe it; and that I think is my challenge with this book - this character, once established, wanders through a plot that for me doesn't quite hang together. Perhaps that's the point, set as it is in a context of urban decay and destruction of the welfare state during Thatcher's regime. There are some interesting fragments about the character's past fighting in Anzio, and some observations about the slave trade upon which Liverpool was built, all filtered through the distortion of this character's mental state. So a worthwhile read, even if the plot doesn't really work all that well.

[Old Man JP · Rating 3 out of 5]

One of Unsworth's lesser known books and I can understand why. It's just not as good as most of what I've read from him. There are parts that are quite good but, overall, it missed the mark. This is the story of a writer, Benson, who is having writers block while writing a book on the slave trade, which is interesting because he wrote this just before he wrote Sacred Hunger, his brilliant book on the slave trade. There were parts that were fairly entertaining and humorous, as when Benson is teaching a class on creative writing and reading some of the students stories, but then there were parts that seemed to drag. Probably, if this had been written by another author I would have thought it was good but, because it's Barry Unsworth, it was a little disappointing.

[Helen · Rating 3 out of 5]

I started taking interest in this book somewhere towards the middle of the story, but did not understand the end whatsoever. What was this "heroic act" of Fictioneers supposed to accomplish, except airing out the general feelings of resentment towards the upper echelons of power?

Overall, the spirit of the book slightly reminds of anti-Trump sentiment (anti-Thatcher at that time) and general disaffection and emptiness.

[Stephen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Writer's block is a theme in the novel, while in life it appears Unsworth himself was experiencing faltering flow in his literary production. Like the progress of a multi-tonne ship down the Mersey, I would take this slow progress as a sign of the weightiness of the matter and challenging approach Unsworth took in a novel that melds the contemporary fiction with historical fact. The disproportionate volume of the slave trade that flowed through Liverpool is written in blood, as well no doubt as Unsworth's own sweat and tears. For all the difficulties in it's production, the prose flows, with memorable scenes from the opening towerblock descent to the staging of drama in the manorial grounds.

Unsworth's next book is better remembered ('Sacred Hunger'), but its strong frame was wrought here.

[Grant · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not the absolute best Unsworth I've read since it exists less as a historical fiction, Unsworths' forte (unless you think the time that its happening, 1988 is historical, which I guess it is now since it includes late Thatcherism, and the Toxteth riots) and more as a multilayered account of a blocked writers' ways of working around his state, in the form of a multilayered narrative with levels including his frustrated and circumscribed present, his experience as a female impersonating member of a concert party immediately before the battle of Anzio in ww2 along with political and social commentary deriving from his research into Liverpool as a port built on 400 years of slave trading ,(thus the "Sugar and Rum of the title). His main theme is how the old crimes and atrocities of the "Middle Passage" echo down to the present, in the fact that the old money, the original capital that founded the family fortunes that support Thatcbers Tory party with their repressive policies, was originally made by capturing and selling slaves. The same people got Cameron elected.Draw your own conclusions.

[Derek Bridge · Rating 3 out of 5]

For me, Unsworth's historical novels are his best, the more contemporary stuff, like Sugar and Rum, never quite firing my imagination to the same degree.

Benson is a published author, now with writers'-block, making scant progress on a book about the slave trade, eking an existence in a troubled Liverpool. The recurring theme is the way we feel compelled to present facades (personas, performances) to meet expectations about the ways we should behave (originating from reputations, positions in society, previously espoused viewpoints, etc.): "The essence of slavery is having a role imposed on you, being made to perform." (p.221 Penguin edn).

It's fine. But if you've read no Unsworth, read Morality Play, Sacred Hunger, or the Song of the Kings in preference to this.

[Tommy · Rating 2 out of 5]

First off, this book is very well written. The author has great control of the english language.

That being said, the malaise of the protagonist wears off on the reader and it becomes a struggle to continue plodding along with him. The main character gets more and more verbose and self-absorbed as he struggles with his life and writers block. I think the author does too good a job conveying this feeling of being stuck in a routine and ultimately I just got bored with the main character and his self-absorbtion.

Final analysis, interesting premise and exceptional execution, but ultimately just an ok story.

[Laila · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hmm. Oddly compelling for the first half but by the time I realized that the book was never going to get any better, I was close enough to the end to finish it. The author can clearly write, some passages, mostly the dialogue, were really engaging. The whole time I read it, the style felt weirdly familiar and I couldn't put my finger on it. I finally figured it out. The same self-absorbed, wildly over-dramatic, unlikable and unconvincing characters that plague Iris Murdoch's books were present here. I'd read something else by Unsworth since I gather this isn't one of his best but I wouldn't recommend this one.

[Sbussey · Rating 5 out of 5]

I adored this. I read it a long time ago but I think I was a new mother and losing a lot of sleep.
What I like: the unflinching portrayal of how unhealthy mental states slip in and out of neurosis, often without anyone noticing. The honest depiction of how when we learn something (something important, something shocking, something painful) we begin to compulsively recognize that truth everywhere, and want to impose it on everyone.

That's all very vague, I know, but Unsworth wrote this book to share his experience of writing about the slave trade--an experience he found distinctly different from his many other historical novels.

[Gpritchard · Rating 3 out of 5]

Written as a reaction to the author's efforts to write "Sacred Hunger" about the slave trade in Liverpool, this book tells the story of a writer's writer's block. It's a quiet book, with an interesting but odd/quirky hero and other characters. I liked it, and I think the author is a smart writer, but I wasn't passionately engaged. Still, Sacred Hunger is going on my list.

[Deedee · Rating 1 out of 5]

I tossed it about a third of the way through. The story is about a writer who has writer's block, who walks the streets of Liverpool at night looking for signs. He thinks he sees some signs (like owls) but isn't sure. Then the author begins a long passage about the frontlines of World War II. I skipped ahead a bit, and it doesn't seem like the novel is going anywheres, so I stopped reading.