The Booker Surprise: Fiona Mozley's Elmet

The eleventh book for my Man Booker Prize challenge (I think I will only get 12 of 13 done, sorry Arundhati) and the last book of the shortlist I have to read is the least likely and most surprising of the books on both the long and short list.

Fiona Mozley was an unknown bookstore clerk who wrote her first novel, Elmet, on her smartphone as she rode to and back from work. So unknown was she that when the Man Booker folks announced their longlist, Elmet had not been released yet. So obscure was Mozley that no one (including me) thought her book had any chance of making the final six, especially in a year with heavy weight authors like Colson Whitehead and Zadie Smith making the long list. 

We were all wrong and I am happy we were because this book is amazing and should be widely read. 

Elmet is the story of a family of Daddy, Daniel, and Cathy, presumably living in the current day but in a secluded pastoral landscape, where intrigues of squatting, tenant-landlord struggles and agricultural worker exploitation are interspersed with illegal bare knuckle boxing as the major plot points driving the story forward. 

Seen from the perspective of the youngest son, Daniel, we are told the story of the gargantuan sized Daddy who has a notorious reputation as an undefeated fighter but who has little property or wealth to leave his children. He must squat on a plot of land that had once belonged to his departed wife, but must contend with the current owner, an under-worldly figure, Mr. Price. Presented an opportunity to gain ownership of the land, Daddy agrees to fight one more time for Mr. Price, but the fight-day's consequences result in a spiralling descent into chaos likely to leave everyone worse off. 

There are several stand out qualities that made me marvel that Mozley is a first time novelist. Firstly, her writing is absolutely gorgeous, giving us these elaborate and detailed descriptions of the pastoral landscape that feel light and pointed, not overwrought or sentimental (traits that depictions of the country often fall into). 

I also loved how Mozley played with time, presumably placing us in the contemporary world with references to the 1980s miners strike as a thing of the past and with modern vehicles convoying around the town, yet having these things alongside anachronistic happenings of rural landlord-tenant struggles and illegal pugilist spectacles deep in seedy woods. 

And in a year where we already had Colson Whitehead offering his mastery of genre-melding, I found Mozley following suit, writing a story that is part romantic longing for a pastoral past, part brooding Gothic tale, part crime thriller, and even a touch of supernatural thrown in. Each of these styles are subtle enough to avoid being gimmicky, yet interesting enough takes to surprise us when they appear. 

Of the six shortlisted titles, Paul Auster's tome 4 3 2 1 remains my favourite, but Elmet is a close second. While I think George Saunders or Ali Smith remain favourites, I may be rooting for this little book that could to win it all.