Alan Humm - The Sparkler

 

The Sparkler is a fictionalised account of part of the life of author Charles Dickens. I opened it in happy anticipation. Alan Humm is well known for his poetry, and as editor of One Hand Clapping magazine, but this is his first novel, so I didn’t know quite what to expect from him, or from the novel’s subject. I’ve read several novels by Charles Dickens, but have never given much thought to the man himself. And of course, The Sparkler is a work of fiction, rather than a factual biography. So, what did I think of it?

Alan Humm's The Sparkler, published by Vine Leaves Press

I have to say, it is a sparkling read. It’s glittering and luminous in terms of story, characterisation and writing style. It’s a vibrant read, whisking us back almost two centuries in time to a world which turns out to be just as lively, glorious and even abrasive as our own. Twenty-something Charles Dickens crackles off the page. Through Alan Humm’s prose we are caught in the sense of animation as we follow the restless, newly married, optimistic, ambitious young man who is fully committed to becoming a famous writer. Dickens is mercurial and impulsive, trawling the grimiest streets of Victorian London by gaslight, infatuated with Sarah, who’s sometime bar-maid, sometime prostitute, fiercely independent woman. Dickens is obsessed with her, and with his wife’s 17-year-old sister. He’s also obsessed with the theatre, and writing, and above all, in making his name. Obsession doesn’t quite reach his relationship with his wife, and this is an interesting aspect of the story. It’s as if having a good wife, in Dickens’s eyes, was all about helping him achieve and maintain his desired social status. And though this might make us critical of him, it can also make us see him as vulnerable.

Having read and enjoyed the novel, I sought out information about the real Dickens, and it’s clear Alan Humm crafted his novel meticulously as a work of fiction drawing on conflicts and notoriety attached to the man himself. It seems Dickens could perfect a world in fiction, while recklessness and spontaneity jeopardised his own life’s story. The Dickens in The Sparkler seems to be all ‘me, me, me’. Tempering this is Humm’s almost tender portrayal of him tormented by memories of being a young lad feeling brutalised and adrift in the harsh streets of the city, and suffering anxieties over loss of home, security – and status. There’s a lot to think about in this novel. Through his vivid storytelling, Alan Humm has created for us Dickens the character who is spirited, energetic, and something of a firecracker. In short, The Sparkler is exactly that.

Author Alan Humm

Extract of The Sparkler

He decided to sit it out. He found a space just to the rear. It was a side street, suburban enough, with pots of flowers and a pump that seemed somehow apologetic. The sky was lower here, more threatening, but also more contained. It seemed to hide between the chimney pots. There was a bench from which he would see her when she came out. It wouldn’t matter how long he had to wait, he told himself, and, indeed, it didn’t. It took on the nature of a vigil. The longer he waited the more approving of himself he was. In his imagination, there was something medieval, something almost exemplary, about his profile. This was what fidelity would look like if you should want to draw it. 

He became colder and colder but he would not stop. He would not give in. Sometimes he paced up and down but that was all that he allowed himself to do. He was there for hours. His thoughts seemed to clang around, uselessly, inside him. All they were, really, were the tail end of his observation of the stones beneath his feet, the small street and the gap at the end, a natural proscenium: the pub on one side and a house at the other and the clouds looming above them both. It was nine o’clock in the evening now. There were, he calculated, hours to go. But he would not move. He was not only proving something but exhibiting it to himself. As a child, in the factory, he had locked hands with the other boys and arm-wrestled over the packing cases. Not often. They had easily defeated him. But this felt like that: the way that all of you was rolled up into one fierce gesture of concentration; the way that the strength of your opponent was something that you were staring down. He would not allow himself to feel the cold. He would not think about how hungry he was feeling. And now he would not even stand. He took on the bench in the same way that he had taken on all of the things he had had to wrestle with since he was a boy. Then, there she was. (p.226-7)

Q&A with Alan Humm

CMcK: Hello Alan. Welcome to my blog! The Sparkler is such an intriguing novel. What drew you to write about Dickens?

AH: I've been reading Dickens ever since I was a child. There are aspects of his writing that I still enjoy very much - I particularly like his gift for metaphor, for example - but, as I've got older, I've become more and more interested in his life, and by its relation to his writing. Why did he write so little about sex? Why are so many of his female characters so very sweet and wan and unassuming? These were questions that I found, more and more, that I wanted the answers to.

CMcK: Why did you choose to write fiction rather than biography?

AH: If you want facts, then a biography is the place to go. And, yes, there are many biographies that also convey some sense of emotional truth but I do think that fiction also has its place here. We can only ever know so much about a person's life, especially about one that was lived so long ago, and there are gaps that I'm sure we'd all like to see filled in. The biggest gap in Dickens's life, it seems to me, is what he actually felt about his sister-in-law. When she died he was distraught; way more than you might have expected him to be. Fiction allowed me to suggest an answer to my own question. Having said that, I only ever worked within the parameters of his real life. I didn't change a single known fact. In the end, I started to believe in the plot of the book myself.

CMcK: Why did you choose that particular time of his life?

AH: It was more that it was chosen for me. I read Becoming Dickens by Robert Douglas-Fairhurst and it was all there: the characters; the milieu; the conflicts. I couldn't resist.

CMcK: Was Charles Dickens a nice person?

AH: It depends what you mean by "nice". He was funny, charming, intelligent and a warm-hearted and passionately indignant social reformer. He was also a loyal and generous friend. But he could be extraordinarily unkind and self-absorbed. He was as much of a human being, in other words, as the rest of us: as good and as bad as we all are in our daily lives. The one thing he undoubtedly was (and is) is fascinating. I hope I've been able to communicate that, at least. 

CMcK: These are such interesting answers to my questions! Thanks so much for guesting on my blog, Alan. I really enjoyed reading The Sparkler, and wish it every success.

For more information about Alan Humm and his writing, visit his website   

The Sparkler is widely available to buy. See publisher Vine Leaves Press's website for full information.

Julie Kennedy - Ma Mum and William Wordsworth

 

Today, I’m delighted to welcome Julie Kennedy to my blog, to talk about her novel Ma Mum and William Wordsworth.

Julie has an impressive writing track record, with poetry and fiction published widely e.g. in New Writing Scotland, Causeway/Cabhsair, Southword, and the Poetry Society Newsletter, and she was highly commended in the Ledbury 2022 Poetry Competition. Ma Mum and William Wordsworth was longlisted in Mslexia’s 2013 First Novel Competition and in 2022 she was awarded a Scots Language Publication Grant to publish it as an ebook.   

Review

By turns amusing and tragic, this is the story of 15-year-old Erin, growing up in an industrial town in late 1970s Lanarkshire. The oldest of eight children, Erin is good at school, keen on literature and full of potential, but her life is rocked by the announcement that her mother is ill.

Erin’s dad is emotionally overwhelmed and out of his depth when he has to step into the role of chief care-giver. He has Erin’s help, but Erin is young, and in many ways an innocent. Alone and adrift in the streets of central Glasgow at night, she naively follows those who approach her with offers of assistance, completely unaware of the danger she’s putting herself in. Author Julie Kennedy is superb at this. Erin doesn’t realise she’s in jeopardy, but the reader does! I thought this was one of the best aspects of this story. We feel huge empathy for Erin. Empathy and affection. We want her to thrive.

Ma Mum and William Wordsworth is beautifully and vibrantly written – Erin’s voice and engaging personality immediately take up residence in your head. I also loved the vivid way the author captures the everyday details of family life in the late seventies. Ranging in mood from anguished to heart-warming, this novel is a deeply satisfying read with echoes of Anne Donovan, Elissa Soave, Des Dillon and Paul McVeigh. I’m sure it will appeal to people Erin’s age and to adults.

 

Ma Mum and William Wordsworth

And here's a short extract to set the mood -

Ma Da’s aunt is a nun in a convent in England. She comes an stays wi us fir a week. She brings plastic rosary beads fir the hail family. We spend ages untanglin them. She does a fart durin the rosary an evirybudy his the giggles. Ma mammy his the giggles as well. Ma da runs oot the room and says he left a pot oan. The nun smiles like we’re in heaven. Nuns don’t hiv bad smells in their farts that must be cos they’re The Brides Of Christ. 

This week we’re doin haiku in class wi Mrs Kelly. We’ve got a plaque oan the waw in the kitchen. It says May the road rise to meet you. Ah tell Anna that it isnae a poem, it’s a proverb. But she says so, who cares? Mum wis readin when she wis in bed. Ah went tae sit wi her tae keep her company an we laughed aboot the nun’s farts. 

‘Whit yi readin?’ 

She turns over the cover. 

Prayers For the Dying 

‘Do you want to read it?’ 

‘Ah’ll read it later,’ ah say.

Author Julie Kennedy

Q&A

CMcK: Welcome, Julie! Ma Mum and William Wordsworth is such a poignant novel, and yet it also had me laughing out loud in places. I thoroughly enjoyed it. But let's start at the beginning. How did you first get into writing?

JK: Thanks for inviting me to your great blog, Carol and thanks for the interesting questions.

When I was 12 my mum bought me a Petite typewriter for Christmas (remember those?) I went straight up the stairs on Christmas Day and wrote my life story ( all of three paragraphs at that time!) Around the same time, I had a primary school teacher, Mr Dougan, who introduced me to creative writing in class. I always loved words and language and was never out of Craigneuk library when I was wee. My mum wrote letters to her family in Ireland all the time so maybe that is where the sitting down and writing partly comes from.  I think your imagination as a child growing up is so rich and I was the classic ‘head in the clouds.’  Now, it might be called creative but then it was a bit shameful that you lived a lot in your head. It could be a mixture of all those things or nothing to do with them.

I did not know any writers or how a person becomes a writer so I did other jobs and would write the odd poem when I could. The life changing moment came when I found the M. Litt in Creative Writing course, at the time, jointly run by Glasgow and Strathclyde Universities. I have heard you saying that as well. I went part- time from my job; making that commitment, well it’s like a gift to yourself and your creativity. My fellow students were, of course, yourself, and the likes of Louise Welsh, Zoe Strachan, Anne Donovan, Rachel Seiffert and Dave Manderson, along with many other gifted writers. My tutors were Margaret Elphinstone and Zoe Wickham (Strathclyde University) along with Willy Maley and Adam Piette (Glasgow University). It was there I developed my confidence and met and learnt from poets such as Kathleen Jamie and Robert Alan Jamieson.  It can sound a cliché when people talk about voice but it was during that time that I felt I started to find my voice as a writer. But I’ve always needed to write to know what I think. There is hopefully an element of mystery or magic to the whole thing.

CMcK: Ma Mum and William Wordsworth deals with the two huge issues of grief and homelessness. What prompted you to write it?

JK: My own mum died when I was a teenager and it was not something people talked about in the seventies. There was not the same openness about death and grief as there is now. I wanted to write a book that the young me could go to the local library and pick up and that she could identify with. I wanted to make a space in the book where a young person’s point of view would be centre stage. As well as that, I think there was always an impulse to do something creative with a difficult experience; maybe, a lot of making art is like that. I mean, transformative for the writer, and hopefully, for a reader too.  I guess I wanted to write about so called ordinary people with all the messiness but the unsung heroics, as well; that is, how the characters adapt and survive and, hopefully, move on with their lives. What I’m trying to say is that I took something that happened to me and then fictionalised it.  I’d tried writing other things and they felt wooden and never cost me anything but as soon as I started writing this book I was engrossed in the voices of the characters and it all just took off from there. I enjoyed my imagination going to work and being on that journey that writing a novel takes you on.

Thanks for the question about one of the themes being homelessness in the book. It is very deliberate. But more generally, that loss of security of home has always been important to me throughout my life. I worked in law centres for a while specialising in defending eviction and repossession actions. I was always drawn to that idea of everyone having a right to a roof over their head and security wherever they are.

In the novel, I wanted to shine a light on how precarious life can be for someone young when family relationships are rocked by a traumatic event; I guess Erin walks a thin line in that sense. Yes, I wanted to show how thin the line is for some people, particularly vulnerable young people. There are points in Erin’s journey, almost of no return, if she makes the wrong move or her luck goes a certain way. I try to leave some space for the reader to work a lot out there, without being too obvious.

CMcK: Did you aim this book at teenagers or adults?

JK: I had both teenagers and adults in mind when I was writing the book. I was trying to keep the story in the point of view of Erin though there are a couple of times the point of view changes to that of her dad, and also, her brothers and sisters. By including Joe, Erin’s dad’s point of view, I wanted to try and look at the experience of loss from different angles. But as I said before, my aim was to write something that felt based on real experience of illness and bereavement from the point of view of a teenager because I felt there wasn’t enough out there. So, I’m hoping young people will enjoy the book and that they will be able to identify with it. This edition of the book is written as an ebook partly to make it easier for young people to access.

CMcK: How important was it for you to capture Erin's voice through her local dialect and did this decision cause you any problems with the publishing industry?

JK: When I was trying to write the story in standard English it felt very constrained. And there’s a resistance to the status quo that comes when you write in Scots so I felt I was tapping into a tradition there that was both exciting and more authentic to my story. What I’m saying is, yes, it was very important for me to write Erin’s voice in her own dialect. I don’t think I set out to do any of it deliberately, at first. But in the early drafts that’s the way Erin and Joe’s voices came to me and it felt like that was the direction the book should go; as well as that, the story is about a large working-class family and the dialect as a spoken language is very rich.  I really enjoyed working with the language and tried to give the book an air of spoken voices more than anything.

I always accepted that my book might not be attractive to mainstream publishers because of the dialect. And not just the characters speaking in dialect but the whole novel being written that way. But, saying that, I think there is more of an appetite now for books that are not in Standard English; there are lots of good examples of Scottish writers who’ve been successful on that front. But for me the main motivation was always to get the book written in the voices that wanted to tell the story. I was never going to compromise on that. Being an indie publisher, as well, I’ve had opportunities to learn a lot of new skills, and it really tests your belief in what you are doing.

CMcK: What are you writing now?

JK: I did a lot of editing for this book so it’s nice to get a change and write some poetry. I’m working on a pamphlet and trying to bring together poems I’ve written in the last couple of years. I’m also working on another novel, nothing to do with this one.

CMcK: Fab. And very interesting! It’s great to learn all this about you and your writing, and about Ma Mum and William Wordsworth in particular. Thanks so much for guesting on my blog. I wish you well with your future plans. But let's finish with some links. Where can readers go to learn more about you and your books?

JK: Okay, here are links to my blog and my page on Amazon. And as I love doing author visits, I'll also share the link to my page in the Scottish Book Trust Live Literature directory. Thank you, Carol. I've really enjoyed our chat. 

Ma Mum & William Wordsworth eBook : Kennedy, Julie: Amazon.co.uk: Kindle Store

Julie S Kennedy

https://www.scottishbooktrust.com/authors/julie-kennedy

 

Silver Writing Anniversary

Well, well. I've just realised it's twenty-five years since my first short story was accepted for publication.

It was early 1999 and I was four months into a two-year part-time MLitt, run in partnership between the Universities of Glasgow and Strathclyde. The MLitt was a fabulous experience for me. At the time, I was 43, the mum to a 15 year old, a 9 year old and two 6 year olds. I'd been a professional librarian till I was 35 then explored freelance journalism for a few years before spotting the MLitt opportunity. My tutors were Margaret Elphinstone and Zoe Wickham at Strathclyde, Adam Piette and Willy Maley at Glasgow. What a talented team they were! So generous in sharing their experience with us learners. It was life-changing for me. And look at my fellow students!  Anne Donovan, Jim Ferguson, Julie Kennedy, David Manderson, Rachel Seiffert, Zoe Strachan, Louise Welsh, and many others. And that was just during the two years I was there. Both universities have fostered many other gifted writers on their Masters programmes before and since.

Back to my first short story publication. The piece was called 'Marion'. It was the result of an exercise set by my tutor in which I was to visualise the main character and setting that would be central to a collection of linked short stories. I tapped into my experience as a librarian in Motherwell but fictionalised it, of course. 

The magazine that accepted it was Edinburgh-based Cencrastus, edited by Raymond Ross. I was overjoyed to have my story in it, published alongside some weel-kennt names. See the details in the photographs.

It's been a pretty full twenty-five years. For more details, have a look at my website. For the remainder of this post, I'll share some recent developments. 

In the tail-end of 2023, I had some happy, happy poetry news. 

First, my poem 'Walking on Sand' won the Scottish Association of Writers' James Muir Poetry Competition in October. Adjudicator Alison Chisholm was incredibly generous in her critique of it, and I treasure what she said. Here's an extract of her critique.

'Sometimes a poem leaps from the page and embeds itself in the reader's mind, flatly refusing to go away. This was my reaction to Walking on Sand, a poem of power and intensity, and yet with the sensitivity to evoke an unsentimental but emotional response.  The situation is familiar and the theme has been addressed many times before; but here the treatment is so compelling that it transcends familiarity. The narrative describes the finding of a pair of hiking boots, triggering the response of "the realisation you'll never walk in them again".... One of the qualities of an excellent poem is its ability to remain fixed in the mind when the reader has walked away from it. ... Congratulations on an exceptional poem.'

Thank you, Alison, and thank you, too, to the Scottish Association of Writers.

Secondly, I was utterly astonished - and also buoyant - to learn that my poem 'Ceilidh' was included in the Scottish Poetry Library's list of the twenty Best Scottish Poems in English in 2022. Selection was made by esteemed Welsh poet Ifor ap Glyn and the announcement was made in early December 2023. You can read the poems via that link, and also hear recordings of them, too. Here's a link directly to my poem, the commentary about it, and the recording of me reading it.

'Ceilidh' is from my pamphlet Reading the Landscape, published by Hedgehog Poetry Press in February 2022.  

Incidentally, Reading the Landscape was reviewed in issue 44 of Northwords Now by Mandy Haggith, and two reviews of it appeared in issue 4 of Dreich Broad Review, published by Jack Caradoc.