Black Car Burning

by Helen Mort

How do we trust each other?

Alexa is a young police community support officer whose world feels unstable. Her father is estranged and her girlfriend is increasingly distant. Their polyamorous relationship – which for years felt so natural – is starting to seem strained. As she patrols Sheffield she senses the rising tensions in its disparate communities and doubts her ability to keep the peace, to help, to change anything.

Caron is pushing Alexa away and pushing herself ever harder. A climber, she fixates on a brutal route known as Black Car Burning and throws herself into a cycle of repetition and risk. Leigh, who works at a local gear shop, watches Caron climb and feels complicit.

Meanwhile, an ex-police officer compulsively revisits the April day in 1989 that changed his life forever. Trapped in his memories of the disaster, he tracks the Hillsborough inquests, questioning everything.

As the young women negotiate the streets of the city and its violent inheritance, the rock faces of Stanage and their relationships with each other, the urban and natural landscape watches over them, an ever-present witness. Black Car Burning is a brilliant debut novel of trust and trauma, fear and falling, from one of our best young writers.

Genres: Fiction, Queer, Literary Fiction, British Literature, Book Club, Novels, LGBT

336 pages, Hardcover

First published April 4, 2019

About the author

Helen Mort is a poet and author from Sheffield, South Yorkshire. Her collection Division Street was shortlisted for the Costa Prize and the T.S. Eliot Prize and won the Fenton Aldeburgh Prize in 2014. She was described by Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy as "among the brightest stars in the sparkling new constellation of young British poets". She is a Cultural Fellow at the University of Leeds, and one of the judges for the 2017 Man Booker International Prize.
Adapted from: http://www.poetaflamenco.com/

Reviews

[Paul · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a debut novel and Mort is a poet. This is obvious from the way the novel is written. It is very much a novel of place and is set in Sheffield and the Peak District. I know Sheffield well, I went to university there and lived there for some years afterwards. A third of the city of Sheffield is actually in the Peak District. To me the geography is familiar and Mort gives it a voice in the sections between chapters. The title does not refer to a random act of vandalism, but to a climb in the Peak District. The four main characters in the book are climbers in one way or another. Sheffield is allegedly built on seven hills and despite it being a city there are lots of trees around. Part of the novel takes place near the village of Hathersage, a few miles outside the city and Stanage Edge (popular with climbers and the location of the climb in the title).
There are four main characters Alexa, a PCSO (Police Community Support Officer): Caron who is Alexa’s girlfriend and a fanatical climber: Leigh works in an outdoor equipment and climbing shop: Pete is an ex police officer who manages the climbing shop. The city is a character in itself, but behind it all is a shadow, that of the Hillsborough disaster. Pete was a very young policeman on duty that day and as a result left the force. Alexa and Caron are polyamorous, this fits seamlessly into the novel. Mort also focuses attention onto tensions in parts of the city in relation to the Roma community whose relatively recent presence is resented by other sections of the community.
There are lots of themes: grief, pride and shame and the devastating effects of Hillsborough: trust is also important and Mort weaves the whole together very well. Mort looks at the ties that bind us, quite apt in relation to the climbing community. The world of the novel is female focussed, even though the climbing fraternity is often defined by a very macho approach. I did learn a bit about climbing (not something I would ever normally go anywhere near):
“None of them knows what it’s like to climb so hard you put all your breath, all your hope into one small movement, one small step that might not matter, but might be everything.”
The language adds to the impact of the novel:
“Above the valley, the moon is a blood moon, tinged pink like the residue left inside an egg, a wound in the clouds, an incredulous mouth, the sky around it seeping.”
The dialogue is also spot on, the relationships well drawn and realistic. The city and the countryside has a voice which captivates. Class and race tensions are present (there is a march by the English Defence League) and addressed. The whole feels untidy in a good way and I really enjoyed this. Mort has been compared with Lawrence, but that is unfair: I enjoyed this much more than Lawrence.

[Hugh · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Sheffield poet, writer and climber Helen Mort was one of Robert Macfarlane's companions on the trip to Greenland he describes in Underland: A Deep Time Journey, which was coincidentally the last book I read before this one. I have been wanting to read this since seeing the hardback reviews last year - there are not many novels in which climbing forms a prominent part, and this one is a worthy addition to the small canon that includes Electric Brae and The Fall.

This book is really a love letter to Sheffield and its surrounding hills, but there is nothing sentimental about Helen Mort's portrait. Her small cast of characters are all involved in the climbing world either directly or through their partners, and the short chapters alternate between their perspectives. Between each of these chapters we get single pages in which personifications of places (both natural and man-made) describe the people and events they "see", and sometimes these are directly related to the plot. One of the main characters, Caron, never gets a chapter of her own, but it is her obsession with a difficult climbing route that gives the book its striking title.

Other than climbing, the dominant themes are the Hillsborough disaster and its ongoing controversial aftermath, and the difficulties poor communities face coming to terms with immigration - Brexit is never specifically mentioned but there was a lot of support for it in Sheffield and the surrounding area. The recent controversy over tree felling in Sheffield suburbs also draws two characters together.

[Anni · Rating 5 out of 5]

In this evocative paean to the city of Sheffield and the Peak District, the rugged landscape is given its own lyrical voice in a poetic metaphor for the steely grit of the rock climbing community. Juxtaposing the underpinning of common purpose and mutual support of this climbing fellowship is the betrayal of another sporting community's trust - as shown in the Hillsborough Stadium tragedy, which overshadows the narrative.
With ancestral ties - and having lived and worked for most of my life in and around the Peak District, this exquisite tribute to its glorious landscape resonated with my deep fondness for this part of England.

Reviewed for Whichbook.net

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

A love letter to Sheffield, South Yorkshire and climbing. Having loved Mort's poetry collection Division Street (named after a street in Sheffield city centre - and the title of a poem in the book) I was eager to check this out.

Black Car Burning takes its title from the name of a climb at Stanage Edge, a popular destination for climbers in the Peak District and not too far from Sheffield. The book is more character (and place) driven than plot driven, although the whole story takes place with the backdrop of the characters' links to the events of the Hillsborough disaster of 1989.

I never thought I'd say this but I actually enjoyed Mort's poetry more than this novel, however the mediums aren't exactly directly comparable. I don't think this novel will be for everyone - I lived in Sheffield for 3 years and loved all of the local references, but if you don't have a link to the city I can appreciate that these might get a bit annoying after a while (or you'll be doing a fair bit of Googling). Despite these minor criticisms the novel makes for compelling reading, tackling themes of identity in a fractured nation, grief and love.

To steal my GR friend Will's phrase - Mort is one to watch for sure.

[Ellie · Rating 5 out of 5]

‘I just can’t stop having nightmares.’
‘You and the rest of South Yorkshire, love,’

Alexa is a polyamorous cop with a climbing obsessed girlfriend. Her estranged dad was a cop on duty during the Hillsbrough disaster. It’s an oddly eclectic premise if you don’t know anything about Sheffield, but if Sheffield were to write a novel I’m sure it’d sound a lot like Black Car Burning. And the neighbourhoods and landscapes of South Yorkshire do speak in short segments throughout the book, acting as an omnipotent sounding board for the characters lives. As if the chatty landscape is there to amplify the human silences that blanket the whole story. It is unapologetically landscape-bound—what could have so easily become a phony device never did because the story wouldn’t make any sense in any other place, told any other way.
It’s a story about trauma—how it ricochets off everyone it touches into everyone else too, connecting more than you might expect. It’s also about more mundane stuff—what happens when someone you love stops talking. What happens when relationships change.
It’s clear to me that it’s a novel written by a poet because reading it feels more like being immersed in a feeling or a theme than being tugged along by a plot. Which is not to say nothing happens, just that the stuff that does happen seems almost beside the point—the story is bigger than the story. It’s bare and blunt, and there are whole characters that exist almost as negative space, described more by everyone else’s actions than their own.
I read it twice, back to back. I wanted to understand what had just happened—to the characters, but also to me. I’m still not completely sure. But it’s an amazing book and you should read it. Just be prepared to have complex feelings.

[Chandra Claypool (WhereTheReaderGrows) · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a novel that, for me, is hard to review. Why? Because while this probably isn't the book for a reader like me, I still have to applaud how beautifully it is written. The author is a poet and her foray into novel writing shows how lyrically sound she is with the way this book is written.

I think for those who are familiar with Sheffield, this may be a more pleasurable read. As a person who is not even remotely familiar, the constant referencing left me a little lost. Let's step away from that and look at the story itself. Absolutely this is a character driven book. There is little plot and there is no clear beginning, middle and end. The background is the characters' links to the events of the Hillsborough disaster, which I also had to look up.

What's absolutely gorgeous about this book is the writing itself. Mort brings us this wonderfully atmospheric read, that while a bit somber, brings you right into the world of these characters. Their loss. Their grief. Their trauma. This book is more about the space and feeling surrounding these characters and what happens to them during these events. As a poet, the author really brings us more of a feeling within the pages rather than having us follow a plot of any kind. Like life itself, these characters continue on after that last page is turned.

While this book is not the book for me personally, I think that those who love character driven novels that wax poetically, this is a book you will absolutely enjoy.

[Andy Weston · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is Helen Mort’s first novel, previously she has been known as a poet, generally writing about the experiences of hikers and the mountains they play on. That theme continues here, each chapter is separated by a page long piece of prose, almost poems, about the different climbing areas of the Peak District.
As you may guess, this isn’t a plot driven novel. It focuses on the life of a community police officer, Alexa, and her girlfriend, who despite their mutual love of climbing, their relationship has become strained. The settings have great appeal, from the rocks and quarries surrounding Sheffield to its pubs and nightlife. Underlying all though, and haunting their lives, are the painful memories of the 1989 Hillsborough disaster.
More than anything else it’s a novel about trust, so evident between climbers, and explored more deeply in the relationships between the key characters.
The various strands never quite come together though, and I was left with the feeling that I had read several interwoven short stories with none of them strong enough to to give the whole thing a backbone.

[Judy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'll direct you to Ellie's review for a complete description of the review I'd write if I was not so lazy. I've never been to the Sheffield area, so did a lot of Googleing, especially for images. I loved the character sketches of places between the people chapters. This was the clearest evidence that Mort is a poet. I look forward to her next novel.

[Colin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Black Car Burning is the poet Helen Mort's first novel. Set in her native Sheffield, it weaves multiple strands into a finely stitched tapestry of the city and the neighbouring Derbyshire Peak District. Anyone who knows Sheffield will also know how the western side of the city merges almost imperceptibly with the moors and gritstone ridges of the Dark Peak. Helen Mort brings together the stories of a seemingly disparate group of characters: a PCSO working against the odds to keep the peace in inner-city Page Hall as the influx of large numbers of Roma immigrants transform the nature of the local community, her partner Caron, addicted to the thrill of risky climbs on Stanage Edge and Leigh, who works in an outdoors shop in the popular climbing base of Hathersage. Linking them all is Pete, haunted by his experience as a young police officer of the Hillsborough disaster of 1989.
Kaleidoscopic, fragmentary and imagist in places, it's sometimes hard to keep on top of who's who, but the relationship between the characters and their individual stories becomes increasingly clear as the novel progresses. There's definitely a poetic sensibility at work here, most tellingly in the short alternate chapters in which the city and the Pennines are given their own voice and tell their own stories.
The title, by the way, comes from the name of a climb on Stanage Edge classed as E (Extremely Severe) 7.

[Lyn Lockwood · Rating 3 out of 5]

Being a proud citizen of Sheffield I had hoped to love this novel. But I feel that the city had taken over both the plot and the characters which was a shame. My favourite character was Alexa, the PCSO struggling with personal and professional battles. The other female characters Leigh and Caron were hard to get a grip on. There were too many switches in view point and some very sketchy coincidences and reveals.

[Andrew · Rating 5 out of 5]

Helen Mort was new to me as a writer until I heard her on a recent BBC radio 4 book programme talking about Sheffield.
Her poetic roots perfectly suit this story in which the landscape of the city and the surrounding Peak District are as much a character as the three other individuals who tell the tale.
Between each narrative section by the two younger women and one older man are short pieces told from the perspective of areas as diverse as the local rock formations ,which are central to the climbing theme that also informs the story, to Hillsborough ( another theme in the book) , and local roads , rivers ,hills moors, and streets. All those short pieces reflect on how the landscape is impacted by its inhabitants.
The book is also about how the Hillsborough tragedy affected Sheffield as a city and the people who were involved through the voice of the man and also those with whom he has contact.
This was a book that I really enjoyed as it told a story of an area and city I know well and in its mixture of hard but beautiful countryside and a city harshly impacted by social and economic changes reflect the lanscape and fate of the north of England as a whole over the last decades.
This will definitely be worth a reread.

[David Allison · Rating 4 out of 5]

Landscape as character, character as landscape - a novel of details so specific that they become almost ambient.

[Nicky Reed · Rating 3 out of 5]

An enjoyable and very readable first novel.
A lot of Sheffield, a lot of the Peaks, a good deal of climbing; throw in some broken, tortured, exploratory, some fracturing, some building and some developing relationships, and you've got a heady mix.
The concentration on the grit (literally and metaphorically), the heart, the history of Sheffield and the surrounding Dark Peak was great - almost to a fault: the sense of the story sweeping almost directly past your own front door was enjoyable but almost distracting!
Helen Mort's craft as a poet breathes into the novel: she literally gives voice to a series of landscapes. (Helen, if your character were to revisit her favourite Sheffield hill now she would, I hope, appreciate the huge efforts of the local voluntary litter-picking community! A slightly changed landscape just now.)
The novel was published in 2019 and draws on current and recent history of Sheffield - the impact and aftermath of the Hillsborough disaster and the enquiry reaching a conclusion at that time, unrest in a Sheffield's community struggling a little to reshape itself around a changing identity. Reading it in 2021, the stories are all very familiar, and still current - the novel is in danger of suffering from dealing in near history: not long enough ago to be past or historic; not recent enough to have kept up to date. But, this said, the treatment of both was sufficiently sensitive. I was a little surprised that the decimation of Sheffield's street trees - an issue at the time which seemed to reach friends around the world (a period of twelve months or so when meeting new people from outside the country was more likely to elicit a "Sheffield - the trees place, yes?" rather than the more typical "Knives, yes?") hadn't made its way into the narrative - but it does indeed find its moment 300 or so pages in.

[Iain Snelling · Rating 2 out of 5]

As a Sheffielder (although not a climber) really enjoyed the local references and descriptions but that was it really. Insofar as there were plot devices they didn’t seem to be followed through consistently - the connections with Black Car Burning for example didn’t seem to be a strong theme. The main characters seemed one-dimensional with the exception of Alexa who had a bit more about her, but her police experiences, as part of the city faced ethnic tensions, also fell away to nothing. Perhaps glimpses of characters and places is the point, but not my taste.

[John Bridgman · Rating 1 out of 5]

Found the constant references to specific areas of Sheffield clunky. I’m sure some people will enjoy ticking off place names in the A-Z. Light on story and what there was was very linear and obvious. Ultimately didn’t go anywhere, found myself wondering what the point of the book was.

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reading Black Car Burning was an interesting experience as well as an interesting book. I am no climber... I can understand the appeal without having any personal interest and even less ability... but I wonder if some of my experience, the occasional nails down a blackboard sensation, the gritted teeth echo a climb?

The book has lots of characters and points of view... and that is even without considering the device of places as characters with their own perspectives. I enjoyed all of this even though some bits were more successful than others. The complex interplay between personal issues and big events, both cataclysmic, like the Hillsborough disaster (atrocity) or slower, the community conflicts made for a challenging experience.

I found the polyamory aspect of the book difficult. There were suggestions that this is a personal identity: "what I am" cf "this is my situation and I am happy with it" and that there's a straw man made of other forms of relationship. This seems to me to diminish the opportunity to say something worthwhile about the negatives of those other more conventional situations. Alexa to me seemed a disempowered individual... almost a victim of low-level abuse and there was so much in her personal history which spoke of not enough love. This combined with what too often seemed more polyfuckery than anything to do with love or personal connection or - a theme of the book - trust, and thus the arguments more defensive than strong. It felt like labels, flags, codes had been stuck all over situations - situations which have been written about many times and always will be - which didn't warrant them. I am not throwing stones here, I know about the glasshouse. I wonder if this could have been written about differently, in a way that didn't have me thinking "Hollyoaks"

The Hillsborough backdrop works... always difficult using something like this for a work of art. Ironically I wondered more about a small element of the book which refers to climbing at High Tor (on which I am looking out as I write) and whether it was OK to describe real, if less nationally famous incidents, relevant though it is to the overall plot. I wasn't so sure about the anti-Roma atmosphere on the Page Hall estate 'working' although she has some worthwhile things to say of the complexities.

I wonder if someone who didn't know that Helen Mort is a poet would know it is a poet's novel? It's not 'lyrical' and I liked that, but it still seems, and this is a compliment, a poet's novel to me.

[Gemma M · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book would appeal to people who live or have lived in Sheffield, and particularly those who climb. Sheffield climbers is a pretty niche audience.
I picked this book up because Sheffield is a city I know well, I used to occasionally climb. I found the book really frustrating. Mort makes the assumption that the reader is familiar with climbing and climbing terms, grades, etc. While also expecting them to know the topography of Sheffield and parts of the Peak District.
For example, there is a casual reference to sitting outside The Lescar. The Lescar could be anything, a monument, a club, a building. It's actually a pub.

For the record (this is a v rough outline), routes up rocks that are climbed are graded in difficulty; moderate, hard, difficult, v diff, hard very diff, severe, v severe etc etc. Each is route is given a name and a grade by the first person who climbs the route. Moving up to Extremely Severe which is categorised via E1, E2, E3 and on. These are considered the more difficult end of climbing. There is only one E10 route in the UK (I think) and fewer E9 routes which have been climbed by a handful of the most talented rock climbers. E7 grade, which is the grade of Black Car Burning the climbing route at the centre of the book is therefore considered to be a very hard route not accessible to many climbers. I hope that is helpful, should you decide to read this book.

Mort is a poet and this is clear in some of the descriptive writing which gives personality to the topography mentioned in the book, but with little clear idea of what and where these places are. Some are areas of the city of Sheffield and some are old quarries, rock formations and a reservoir in the Peak District.

Plot spoiler: as the story unfolds it becomes clear that there is an unrealised connection between
2 of the characters in the book, whose stories exist in parallel while a third character steps between them, apparently unknowing. The plot is driven forward by the expectation of when this connection will become clear and how. However, once again Mort fails to reveal details to the reader. The connection simply happens and as a reader, I was left wondering how/why/when Leigh worked it out. Disappointing.

[Nicola Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

When I was first looking at reading this book I had a look at the first few pages and I thought to myself that here is a book that is very 'Sheffield'. As a born and bred Sheffielder that makes it great for me but don't worry if you don't know the city as you will still appreciate the story.

I do, however, think that the setting is crucial, not least because it deals with the aftermath of the Hillsborough disaster, particularly for police officers who were on duty that day, some of whom have never been able to move on. One of those ex-officers is a character in the book and he's obsessive about going over and over his memories and the paperwork relating to the incident.

The other major characters are all women. Alexa is a PCSO who is in a polyamorous relationship with Caron. Caron is a climber and wants to attempt the difficult Black Car Burning climb at Stanage Edge. Leigh works in a climbing gear shop and watches on as Caron pushes herself further and further with her climbs, whilst also dealing with her slightly unstable boss, Pete.

In between each chapter is a vignette from the point of view of a place in Sheffield, really bringing the city to life for both residents and non-residents alike.

Feelings and emotions are very much at the forefront of Black Car Burning. I'd describe it as a quiet and intense read at times. I liked the way boundaries were challenged and that it's far from formulaic. It's a very well-written story of love, loss, trauma, being tested and being brave, leading up to a hopeful ending. Helen Mort is a poet as well as a debut novelist and her writing is definitely poetic in style. This meant that it wasn't always easy for me personally to read but I do think she has an intelligent, thoughtful and descriptive writing style. I'm really interested to see what she writes next.

[Sorrento · Rating 4 out of 5]

In her debut novel Helen Mort has captured what sounds like the authentic voice of the climbing community in modern day Sheffield. This is a city still haunted by the Hillsborough tragedy. Also more recently some of it’s residents have developed a sense of resentment at the influx of Eastern European people and their strange ways of congregating en masse in the outdoors.
The book tells a story which revolves around four main characters three female and one male. Carron is the elite climber who harbours an ambition to conquer a difficult route at the end of Stannage Edge which goes by the title of the book. Her girl friend Alexa is police community support officer who must calm the local community but who for some reason can’t get Hillsborough out of her head. Leigh and Pete both work in the climbing shop. Leigh is Carron’s climbing partner and Pete, the oldest character also a climber has lost his wife to a climbing accident.
The book is structured by telling the story of in chapters alternatively named after each of main the characters interspersed with a short chapter named after a climbing location or a street/area of Sheffield. That way we get to know the characters whose back stories are gradually revealed, especially that of Pete and we also get to know the famous climbing crags and areas of Sheffield.
Helen Mort is a young woman who is a native of Sheffield and a climber herself and the book feels as though she has put a lot of herself into it. I got emotional at times reading the book as there are some tough issues and scenes. However, this is balanced with passages which beautifully convey the climber’s passion for their sport and the intimate friendship of the climbing partners. I enjoyed reading Black Car Burning especially as I am very familiar with the area and have experienced the climbing Helen Mort describes.

[Steven Kay · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wondered about the extent to which you’d consider this to be a novel at all; following Forster’s widely accepted definition it is, in so much as it a piece of fictional writing of a certain length. Using the “aspects” of Forster’s discussion it ticks the box of following the stories of three characters over time, and it has a story, but for me what was missing was that there was nothing much by way of plot. To use Forster’s example: “The king died and then the queen died” is a story, “the king died and then the queen died of grief” is a plot. Black Car Burning is mostly a sequence of largely unconnected events: stuff happens but causality is thin. While the reader can appreciate the quality of the writing (and Helen Mort’s ability to write is beyond question) there is not much to make the reader wonder what will happen next, now that such and such has happened. There is a story thread related to climbing, some relationships, and a largely incongruous thread about the Hillsborough disaster but does the reader care that much? Interspersed with the “action” are a series of “postcards” from various locations around the city. You can appreciate these as you would any good descriptive piece of writing and Mort’s skill as a poet and writer shines through, but is that in itself enough to sustain a reader? Nor did the characters keep this reader gripped: they were, all three, a bit of a much of a muchness. I never really engaged with any of them and at times forgot which was which, they were so indistinct.

[Emma McEvoy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Black Car Burning is essentially a love letter to Sheffield and it's climbing community out in The Peak District. Told from multiple perspectives, we learn more about the lives of a group of climbers, and the deep and lingering shadow cast by the Hillsborough disaster.
Caron is a climber. She has become obsessed with a difficult route known as Black Car Burning in The Peak. Her fixation pushes her away from her girlfriend, Alexa.
Alexa is a PCSO who is increasingly disillusioned with her job. Her mental health begins to suffer as her girlfriend, Caron, becomes increasingly distant. She finds herself thinking more about her estranged father and the chasm between them.
Leigh works in a climbing shop which Caron frequents. They become involved and Leigh is pulled into Caron's life and her obsession.

An unnamed ex-police officer relives the trauma of the Hillsborough disaster.

And Sheffield...there are the most wonderful sections narrated by different parts of the city, extending out to The Peak.
Essentially, Black Car Burning it is about trust - trust in your climbing partner, your lovers, your mind. I absolutely loved it, and know it's one I will return to in the future.

[Bonnie Gibbs · Rating 3 out of 5]

I should begin this review by mentioning that, because I read it as part of the Dylan Thomas longlist, I was judging it as a potentially winning novel and therefore I held it under a harsher critical light than I would subject to books I read for pleasure.
And for the most part it withstood this.
Mort's poetic history certainly shines through in this novel and despite it being described as "deeply human" she does a great job of bringing the landscape alive to swallow both her story and her audience.
The range of perspectives in this novel is fascinating but in places I think her characters could be more developed, for example, in the opening chapters, her portrayal of trauma seems clumsy and in places I spotted the mechanics of her story making which caused me to distance myself for the characters and potential manipulation.
However the narrative itself is a beautifully spun web and it does reel you in successfully. It felt like a well fleshed out community to be allowed into as a reader and using a multitude of perspectives Mort moves around it beautifully.

On a personal level I enjoyed the roll that climbing played in this novel and its diversity was refreshing, although I will say that I thought the ending was a bit of a copout.

[✰matthew✰ · Rating 4 out of 5]

i thought this book was pretty amazing, it was a realistic love letter to sheffield and the peak district and looked particularly at the landscape.

the character writing was great, the characters were all human and realistically so, they all had their faults. the way relationships and honest emotions are written about are some of the most true i’ve read.

the location chapters were so beautifully written and again very true to the local area, they included places you wouldn’t consider normally beauty spots.

location and landscape throughout were such central and important elements, i know some of the locations mentioned but felt i could have been to all of them due to how vivid the descriptions are.

the book went in a few different directions, this worked on the whole but on some occasions i was a little confused as to what was happening, mainly as a couple of the characters seemed to be doing similar things at times.

this book is not an easy read in places as it tackles some big and important topics, maybe look into these first.

[Ruby Singh · Rating 2 out of 5]

Abandoned at Pg116.
Difficult to understand the structure of the book and at times who is narrating the chapter.
Lots of different characters, who do not appear to be converging or seemingly having any relevance to the story beyond one scene.
Seems like lots of fashionable themes thrown in, which I always find off-putting in a book, as it shows lack of confidence on the part of the author.
Helen Mort could be a great fiction author one day, but this first attempt is really hard work.
Fiction should be pleasurable not an arduous chore.
I felt that I may have appreciated the book more if I was familiar with the places she was writing about, however, good writers don't make the reader feel excluded because they don't know the location the book is set in.
The good bits are her use of language, which is exceptional, however, I'm too distracted by all the other things to enjoy it fully.
I'm sure her poetry is amazing but this first attempt at fiction isn't great.

[April · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book will absolutely stay with me forever. I'm a climber, from Sheffield, who used to work in a climbing centre/shop, so this book was such a comforting read, especially as so many other elements of the characters' lives also mirror my own. I have also spent a massive massive amount of time on Kinder Scout etc, so reading from the perspective of these personified locations was such an unusual yet completely immersive experience. It was a very weird feeling to read about places I know so well already, and not have that typical 'foggy' vision of fantasy locations. The characters were well defined and I could picture each one of them, and I truly did not expect the last twist when more of the relationships between them all were revealed. I will be recommending this book to every single Sheffield climber I know. I can't wait to read Helen's poetry next.

[Katedurie50 · Rating 4 out of 5]

There's a lot to like about this - the multiple perspectives, including those of the landscape (urban and rural) itself; the focus on trust - in relationships familial and sexual, between ethnicities in the community and with the police, in climbing (trust of the rock itself and of the person belaying you); and the long shadow of Hillsborough and the enquiry with its heart a massive betrayal. THis feels veyr contemporary - there's even the trees protest as well as the tensions, documented on TV, in Page Green. It's quite hard to categorise but well done and rather good to have a community police officer whose job is about keeping the fragile peace rather than solving an imaginatively brutal murder.

[Nicki · Rating 4 out of 5]

I bought this book because I'm from Sheffield and I've walked in many of these areas. I don't know anything about climbing since walking is my obsession and it was interesting to learn the name of the many climbing areas around Sheffield. It took me a while to complete the book but this was because its hard to concentrate at the moment rather than the book itself. I think I was more interested in the descriptions of the local areas and the Hillsborough disaster rather than the characters themselves. I thought the layout of the book was unusual and it worked well for me. The only criticism is the negative portrayal of the poorer areas of Sheffield, which do have their problems but it is not all doom and gloom. I hope the writer continues to write more novels set in Sheffield.

[Ellie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really liked the writing, however I felt some of the characters (especially female) were not fully developed and found it difficult to relate to/care about them. (Pete was the only character I could get a real sense of). I thought the references to Hillsborough were done well and sensitively handled and there were moments that were genuinely touching.

Being from Sheffield, I loved all the descriptions of place, but felt this might be challenging/frustrating for anyone not familiar with Sheffield.

The descriptions of climbing, sex and relationships seemed a bit cold and joyless, and I didn’t feel the climbing was fully explored. That said, there was a lot to enjoy in this book (particularly if you’re from Sheffield) and some gorgeous descriptions of place.

[Libbysbookshelf · Rating 4 out of 5]

BLACK CAR BURNING by HELEN MORT

Dylan Thomas Prize Longlist #7

I really enjoyed this poetic look into the life and culture of Sheffield. At times it felt like a love letter to Yorkshire and the landscapes came to life!

I also enjoyed the references to rock climbing - something of which I know nothing, but found interesting and compelling nonetheless.

The characters were intriguing and a lot was left to the imagination when it came to descriptions and histories, which I always love in books. I appreciate it when a writer trusts their reader enough to leave some blank spaces to be filled in with imagination.

A strong contender for the prize @dylanthomasprize

[Diane Woodrow · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was an ok read. Though I found that one got more from it by knowing about rock climbing, polyamorous relationships and the Hillsborough disaster. I think if had had no knowledge of these three things it would have been a flat confusing book.
It is interesting how the relationships weave together. The ending is pleasant - not just the outcome of the inquiry, which is now public knowledge, but the relationships. Though I felt that the relationship between both Alexa and Leigh with Caron was left unfinished. So there was some good reconciliation with Alexa and Pete but not so much with the other characters.
Like I say a nice read but not a great read.