Shade
New Member
Kevin Lewis, for those ignorant of his oeuvre, is the British Dave Pelzer, author of a book on his terrible abused childhood. Whereas Pelzer has so far strung his story out into four (or is it five?) books, Lewis's The Kid (with its identikit Pelzer-like cover) did well but the follow-up, Moving On, must have done pretty badly (there aren't any reviews on Amazon for one thing) as the paperback, just published, has been renamed The Kid Moves On. You know: to make it easy for you!
And so. Instead of ploughing an ever-decreasing furrow, Kevin Lewis has decided to become a novelist, with as much sincere but misplaced intent as any of the tens of thousands of hopeless chancers who audition for Pop Idol and The X Factor. Perhaps aware that the best form of publicity is word-of-mouth, his publishers, Penguin, have offered 200 proof copies of his debut novel Kaitlyn to subscribers to their monthly newsletter. And I've got one here in front of me. It comes out in February 2006, enough time presumably to get a real groundswell of opinion going, and for the pages to be passed from hand to hand several times. The cover says “MAJOR consumer pre-publication proof mailing will start to build WORD OF MOUTH anticipation for Kaitlyn." Well, guys, here’s your first word, from my mouth: don’t.
The only cause for optimism in all the book that I can see is the disclaimer on the inside cover: "The contents of this proof may not resemble the finished book." Well, here's hoping, because Kaitlyn is one of the worst books of any description I have ever read, entirely without qualities in writing or characterisation. It lumps cliché upon cliché and there is not an original thought or phrase in the thing. When Lewis wants people to be liked by the reader, he ends their speech with "he said softly." A passage describing someone's first injection of heroin is Dan Brown-like in its clunking explication:
Or this:
Revellers! Hit acts! Or how about this, when we are apparently seeing Holloway prison from the viewpoint of Kaitlyn, who has just been banged up at the age of 16 (we’ll overlook for the moment the apparent absence of Young Offender’s Centres):
Yes, I can just imagine that those are the thoughts that would pass through your head as you walk through the prison for the first time.
There are numerous other howlers of point-of-view – Lewis doesn’t seem even to understand the concept – including one scene where we are apparently sharing the observations of a few-months-old baby, and thoughtless switchbacks within scenes and even paragraphs. If the book has been proofread for inconsistencies, it doesn’t show: in one scene from Kaitlyn’s point of view, Kaitlyn is in a tent with Jacob and “could only see his silhouette so didn’t know if he was smiling” – but a few lines later, “Jacob’s eyes grew wide with excitement.” Or the scene set in October 1985 when the lead character, teenager Kaitlyn, is trying to get her mother off heroin, but the GP says there’s a three month waiting list for the rehab clinic. “But Kaitlyn knew that in another three weeks, let alone three months, her mother would in all likelihood be dead.” Next chapter: February 1986, four months later, and mum’s alive and well. This fake tension-building is endemic in the novel. Every chapter ending (as the quote just now was) is an Acorn Antiques-style dramatic speech or unintentionally hilarious mawkish moment:
Mm, I can hear the EastEnders theme music kick in, can’t you? Clichés clog the pages:
He hit the ground like a sack of potatoes … But for the fact that Gary was bald he would have been tearing his hair out … After a silence that seemed to last for eternity … Now she was out of the frying pan into the fire … He stood out like a sore thumb … He’d decided on the spur of the moment … his mop of tidy blond hair … a thick mop of tightly curled black hair … She was asleep almost as soon as her head hit the pillow … a stream of obscenities … a ball of orange flame … a sickening crunch … deathly pale …
The characterization – or caricaturisation – rarely expands as far as two dimensions:
A heavily tattooed thug whose favourite pastime was inflicting pain on others … He looked as though he’d spent the last few months sleeping on the street, which was exactly what he had done … Dr Taylor was in his late fifties and overworked to the point of exhaustion, but always made an effort to be kind to his patients …
And Kevin Lewis never, ever, shows us anything when he can just tell it instead:
It was a powerful moment that would stay with her for the rest of her life … It was an idyllic scene and one which Jane had always wanted to be a part of … ‘The whole country’s going mad. There are riots going on in Brixton, Broadwater Farm in Tottenham and Toxteth in Liverpool’ (this realistic dialogue from one teenage gang member to another) … Something about the moment told him this was the girl he had been looking for, this was the one …
And throughout, the prose just deadens everything it describes. Why is this important? Because it distances the reader from the characters and storyline. It denies the possibility of empathy, and empathy is all we’re supposed to fell, because Kaitlyn sure ain’t aimed at the brain. When a scene takes place, for example Kaitlyn’s first time in Holloway prison, we’re supposed to feel sorry for her, but everything about the way it’s told is so second-hand and crappy – like the panto-villain style prison warder who callously takes her few treasured possessions from her (sob!) – that it stops us from caring.
The storyline is a tiresome combination of pointless coincidence and relentlessly grim circumstances – child abuse? Check. Drug addiction? Check. Domestic violence? Check. ‘Tragic’ miscarriage of justice? Check. Complete absence of life in any of the characters, scenes or sentences? Double, triple check with a cherry on top. It’s an interesting discovery that the books which can teach us most about the importance of good writing, of solid, effortful, worked prose, are the ones which haven’t got any.
So the book is bad. So what? Well, it raises the question: what is the constituency of Kaitlyn? Who is the book aimed at? I find it disturbing that there are people out there who have read Kevin Lewis’s childhood abuse diaries and want a bit more, only in fictional entertainment format this time. Penguin certainly have hopes for it (“Unforgettable … breathtaking” the cover of the proof says. Well, in a sense): the back cover promises that
Well, shame on Penguin. Why not spend the money on a couple of more interesting books which might have a fighting chance of still being in print in two years’ time? By people who have been signed up because they can write, not because their past tragedy gives hard-ons to ghouls?
I mean, it’s terrible that Kevin Lewis had such abuse and trauma in his childhood: but really, why does that mean we all have to suffer?
And so. Instead of ploughing an ever-decreasing furrow, Kevin Lewis has decided to become a novelist, with as much sincere but misplaced intent as any of the tens of thousands of hopeless chancers who audition for Pop Idol and The X Factor. Perhaps aware that the best form of publicity is word-of-mouth, his publishers, Penguin, have offered 200 proof copies of his debut novel Kaitlyn to subscribers to their monthly newsletter. And I've got one here in front of me. It comes out in February 2006, enough time presumably to get a real groundswell of opinion going, and for the pages to be passed from hand to hand several times. The cover says “MAJOR consumer pre-publication proof mailing will start to build WORD OF MOUTH anticipation for Kaitlyn." Well, guys, here’s your first word, from my mouth: don’t.
The only cause for optimism in all the book that I can see is the disclaimer on the inside cover: "The contents of this proof may not resemble the finished book." Well, here's hoping, because Kaitlyn is one of the worst books of any description I have ever read, entirely without qualities in writing or characterisation. It lumps cliché upon cliché and there is not an original thought or phrase in the thing. When Lewis wants people to be liked by the reader, he ends their speech with "he said softly." A passage describing someone's first injection of heroin is Dan Brown-like in its clunking explication:
Or this:
Revellers! Hit acts! Or how about this, when we are apparently seeing Holloway prison from the viewpoint of Kaitlyn, who has just been banged up at the age of 16 (we’ll overlook for the moment the apparent absence of Young Offender’s Centres):
Yes, I can just imagine that those are the thoughts that would pass through your head as you walk through the prison for the first time.
There are numerous other howlers of point-of-view – Lewis doesn’t seem even to understand the concept – including one scene where we are apparently sharing the observations of a few-months-old baby, and thoughtless switchbacks within scenes and even paragraphs. If the book has been proofread for inconsistencies, it doesn’t show: in one scene from Kaitlyn’s point of view, Kaitlyn is in a tent with Jacob and “could only see his silhouette so didn’t know if he was smiling” – but a few lines later, “Jacob’s eyes grew wide with excitement.” Or the scene set in October 1985 when the lead character, teenager Kaitlyn, is trying to get her mother off heroin, but the GP says there’s a three month waiting list for the rehab clinic. “But Kaitlyn knew that in another three weeks, let alone three months, her mother would in all likelihood be dead.” Next chapter: February 1986, four months later, and mum’s alive and well. This fake tension-building is endemic in the novel. Every chapter ending (as the quote just now was) is an Acorn Antiques-style dramatic speech or unintentionally hilarious mawkish moment:
Mm, I can hear the EastEnders theme music kick in, can’t you? Clichés clog the pages:
He hit the ground like a sack of potatoes … But for the fact that Gary was bald he would have been tearing his hair out … After a silence that seemed to last for eternity … Now she was out of the frying pan into the fire … He stood out like a sore thumb … He’d decided on the spur of the moment … his mop of tidy blond hair … a thick mop of tightly curled black hair … She was asleep almost as soon as her head hit the pillow … a stream of obscenities … a ball of orange flame … a sickening crunch … deathly pale …
The characterization – or caricaturisation – rarely expands as far as two dimensions:
A heavily tattooed thug whose favourite pastime was inflicting pain on others … He looked as though he’d spent the last few months sleeping on the street, which was exactly what he had done … Dr Taylor was in his late fifties and overworked to the point of exhaustion, but always made an effort to be kind to his patients …
And Kevin Lewis never, ever, shows us anything when he can just tell it instead:
It was a powerful moment that would stay with her for the rest of her life … It was an idyllic scene and one which Jane had always wanted to be a part of … ‘The whole country’s going mad. There are riots going on in Brixton, Broadwater Farm in Tottenham and Toxteth in Liverpool’ (this realistic dialogue from one teenage gang member to another) … Something about the moment told him this was the girl he had been looking for, this was the one …
And throughout, the prose just deadens everything it describes. Why is this important? Because it distances the reader from the characters and storyline. It denies the possibility of empathy, and empathy is all we’re supposed to fell, because Kaitlyn sure ain’t aimed at the brain. When a scene takes place, for example Kaitlyn’s first time in Holloway prison, we’re supposed to feel sorry for her, but everything about the way it’s told is so second-hand and crappy – like the panto-villain style prison warder who callously takes her few treasured possessions from her (sob!) – that it stops us from caring.
The storyline is a tiresome combination of pointless coincidence and relentlessly grim circumstances – child abuse? Check. Drug addiction? Check. Domestic violence? Check. ‘Tragic’ miscarriage of justice? Check. Complete absence of life in any of the characters, scenes or sentences? Double, triple check with a cherry on top. It’s an interesting discovery that the books which can teach us most about the importance of good writing, of solid, effortful, worked prose, are the ones which haven’t got any.
So the book is bad. So what? Well, it raises the question: what is the constituency of Kaitlyn? Who is the book aimed at? I find it disturbing that there are people out there who have read Kevin Lewis’s childhood abuse diaries and want a bit more, only in fictional entertainment format this time. Penguin certainly have hopes for it (“Unforgettable … breathtaking” the cover of the proof says. Well, in a sense): the back cover promises that
Well, shame on Penguin. Why not spend the money on a couple of more interesting books which might have a fighting chance of still being in print in two years’ time? By people who have been signed up because they can write, not because their past tragedy gives hard-ons to ghouls?
I mean, it’s terrible that Kevin Lewis had such abuse and trauma in his childhood: but really, why does that mean we all have to suffer?