I Don't Want to Go to the Taj Mahal: Stories of a Birmingham Boy

by Charlie Hill

I Don't Want to Go to the Taj Mahal tells the story of its author, Charlie Hill, living in the Midlands in the 1980s and 1990s.

In a series of vignettes, I Don't Want to Go to the Taj Mahal recounts Hill's experiences with work, identity, sex, politics, drugs, homelessness and dissolution, set against the backdrop of Birmingham at the end of the twentieth century.

Genres: Nonfiction

105 pages, Kindle Edition

Published September 8, 2020

Reviews

[Alan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I know Charlie a bit, have read with him at launches and seen him on literature panels etc. We both live in Birmingham (UK), but Charlie was born and bred here (unlike me - I arrived only in 1982 aged 27), and his new book tells the tale of his growing up in the city through a series of vignettes which are brief (usually less than a page) but intricate, hilarious and thoughtful. There's an attempt to stand back and view his own life as an outsider might, without judgement, as if puzzling out how he came to be where/how he is now. The title gives away his contrariness, and Hill has not taken usual routes, having many casual jobs (some that last mere hours: I was especially intrigued by the one counting bank notes in Newtown):

I was 28 when I worked a summer at Laughtons, a factory in moribund Yardley Wood and put lacquer onto plastic nick-nacks. I got the job through an ex-armed robber who had a big heart and a dad who sold baked potatoes and burgers from the back of a van at the Henley Regatta.

.. and as much sex, drugs and alcohol (in a discerning manner) as he can fit in. He is economic and fluid in his descriptions:

A narrow escape. We enjoyed particularly sensual, soft-focus sex but irked each other too and the mid-term prognosis was underwhelming; shortly after I dallied with an ex, she bagged a good mate of mine, and time was saved.

I loved it, read it in an afternoon, but have gone back to re-read many of the pieces, the prose so well oiled you glide seamlessly through it.

The book has been attracting some well deserved stunning reviews, and this one - https://culturematters.org.uk/index.p... -
covers much of how I feel about the book, particularly this: What connects Hill's writing about both his politics and his career is his ability to laugh at himself without sneering at the causes or vocations that have mattered most to him. This is not Portrait of the Writer as a World Weary Cynic. No sense of 'knowing better' now haunts Hill's descriptions of idealism, excess or ambition. Rather, we see our humble narrator in a constant state of development or change, alert and open to new possibilities. In an era where neoliberal identity politics holds sway, and writers in particular are under persistent pressure to crystallise and calcify their image or their 'brand', Hill's approach comes across not only as zesty but potentially radical.

I didn't know Charlie that well, but I do now, I'm glad to say.

[Garrie Fletcher · Rating 4 out of 5]

Like Alan Beard, see his review below or above, depending on where this gets posted, I know Charlie a bit. It's probably more accurate to say I know of Charlie as we've been at the same literary events and know some of the same people - Birmingham's a small place when it comes to writers. I didn't know what to expect with this - autobiographies can be a mixed bag of tortured artist and Mr/Mrs know it all, but this wasn't like that. Not at all. On the back cover, Stewart Home probably puts it best, "Utterly rancid. I loved it." I agree.

As with Charlie himself, I know Birmingham a bit. I moved here in late 1993 when I was a mere twenty-four years old and it took me some time, at least. a couple of years, to orientate and to feel part of the ugly, beautiful, industrial, green, compact, sprawling mess that is England's second-largest city (fuck off Manchester.)

I Don't Want to Go to the Taj Mahal comes in at just under a hundred pages and is a delight to read. Hill writes with refreshing impartiality looking in from outside his life, detailing infidelities, alcohol and chemical use and his employment fluidity with a keen and neutral eye. Charlie has held a diverse range of jobs from counting money inside a concrete bunker in Newtown to failing to tackle the complexities of grant applications along with a multitude of unskilled jobs and creative business projects. Each selected episode from Hill's life is captured in a few lines, often less than a page and this economy of language leads to almost poetic scenes of squalor, love and friendship. Pretty much every page is a delight but here's one that stayed with me for a while, "I live in inner-city Balsall Heath with outlaws, dole-ites and artists and get a job with a packing firm. The packaging firm is in Tysley, a freeing patchwork of factory estates and boarded up pubs. I smoke amongst the cardboard boxes in the warehouse, there is a woman the bus who looks like Clara Bow and the flapjacks from the shop are good but still, I am restless. After managing an office consisting of me all day, I come home to a house full of New Age travellers chopping speed to jungle - an eight dog front room! - and a tea of Special Brew and noodles, and although my relationship with them is cautious, there are pulls in many directions."

I know many of the places that Hill talks about and even some of the people - who could forget Jay the psychobilly? - but it's not important to know these places or people to enjoy this book. Not at all. Hill's life will mirror the lives of many people, parts of it definitely chime with mine, and one big city, to some degree, is very much like another, but if you want a glimpse of life lived differently in the red-bricked, treelined, concrete heart of the country then this is a must-read.

I imagine, much like Alan, that I will be returning to this again and again. Go get.

[Kristiana · Rating 3 out of 5]

I Don’t Want to go to the Taj Mahal by Charlie Hill is an interesting approach to a memoir, told through linear vignettes but without a clear sense of how much time has passed between each one. This chosen structure made for easy reading but, for me, lacked depth and substance.

The reason I didn’t feel too invested, however, could simply be the result of who I am and when I grew up. Others, like Hill, who revelled in the 80s and 90s might see themselves - their upbringings, struggles and loves - reflected in Hill’s vignettes, some of which were heartfelt, honest and humorous.

But the memoir they form, leaned (perhaps unintentionally) into the trope of a struggling artist with the consistent focus on failed starts and the narrator’s encounters with women. It felt like a story which has been told countless times, which is not to say a memoir must be utterly unique, but it was a surprise considering the vehemence of the publisher’s manifesto. Thus, again for me, it read as quite self-indulgent even if this was not the intention; which is a shame as Hill’s written style is fast-paced, genuine and vivid in how he captures places and people. I hungered for more of this - for the vignettes to expand into more, and yes, entirely defeat the purpose of a vignette. I believe the chosen structure is a hindrance although different and unique. The snapshot I acquired of Hill felt clichéd rather than authentic.

I Don’t Want to go to the Taj Mahal had such promise to be so much more. Towards the end especially, his reflections on why we write and how family and love, and inevitably growing older change you had the opportunity to be more introspective and universal to the reader. I wanted to remember Hill’s kaleidoscopic ventures rather than blink and miss them.

The memoir has moments which will warm you and make you laugh, but it lacks an authenticity which I believe Hill does have. His writing can undoubtedly plumb the depths of humanity but alas, the vignettes stifled this; leaving I Don’t Want to go to the Taj Mahal an easy read but not the A Moveable Feast it could have been.

[Michael Brown · Rating 4 out of 5]

In vignettes, I Don't Want to Go to the Taj Mahal relates author Charlie Hill's experiences with work, identity, sex, politics, drugs, and at times homelessness in Birmingham in the 1980s and 1990s. It reminded, me quite a bit of Diary of an Oxygen Thief, although in that "memoir" the author seemed to shy away from revealing his true name calling himself (?) Anonymous and here Charlie Hill steps right out on stage and tells us all about his dissolute life even though he admits to having children and is not afraid to reveal his background in front of them. This is a brief book that tells a lot and seems well worth rereading. Thanks to the excellent author Charles Lambert for bringing this to our attention, and now I have yet another modern voice to look out for in an embarrassment of riches.

[Max Mulgrew · Rating 5 out of 5]

Charlie Hill’s I Don’t Want to Go to the Taj Mahal takes the reader right into the twisted guts of a city, with a cast of lovers, druggies, dealers, New Age travellers, artists, squatters and thugs. Hill’s spare prose chronicles the down-and-out years that gave him ‘hard-won experience’. The resulting vignettes that make up this book work like a series of perfect life drawings - so much can be learned from each image.
He tells us he has a ‘feeling of perpetually unfinished business’ and you have to be glad he feels that way. I read this in one sitting and was left wanting more. He questions whether time has been wasted and concludes, ‘Emphatically, resoundingly not, though you can never be sure.’ I would be inclined to put the full stop after ‘not’, but what do I know?

[Stagger Lee · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this in one (fairly long) bath*

It's a book about a life and people I totally understand, with concerns and failings I totally relate to. It made me fucking HOWL with laughter and cringe with recognition.

Just great.

(*Time not scale)

[Ellie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Funny and touching with occasional smatterings of sadness. One to keep coming back to.

[Catherine McNamara · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very lovely humorous earnest and touching journey of sorts, gathering many threads, moods and truths. Thoroughly recommend.

[Jamil Akram · Rating 1 out of 5]

Only gets a star because I'm a Brummie and recognise a lot of the places mentioned. Some funny stories in there, but all in all nothing particularly special about this book.

[Rowena Macdonald · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read this a while ago, so my memory is hazy, but I really liked this.