#61 Notes From Underground
#61 Notes From Underground
A switch-up from our usual portion.
Morning, morning. Happy February! Today, I thought I’d try something a little different as for the best part of a year I’ve been pumping out stories every other week for you. I’ve simultaneously been plugging away at a novel and I’m starting to play the endgame: editing, restructuring, rewriting, rethinking it. I thought friends and strangers might enjoy a peak behind the curtain at the process, and the work that goes into it.
Before, we do, your musical accompaniment for this piece is one of my favourite songs from my favourite album from 2023, by the immaculate Young Fathers. Just magical stuff. Here’s Geronimo, performed live for Seattle’s KEXP radio station. And here’s the full set if you dig it.
If you’re a gladiator, enter the Coliseum of the archives. Given it’s a non-fiction week, here’s some short stories to chew on:
For more by other writers I don’t know, try here, here and here.
#61 Notes From Underground
A couple weeks ago I embarked on a week long trip to Porto, Portugal, with the express intention of taking what was a very, very drafty first draft of my latest novel, and trying to turn it into just an ordinary first draft.
Unlike my previous attempts at novels, which were in consecutive order, a literary piece about memory and loss in relationships, a Pynchonian maze of a modern drama, and a historical fiction novel about the sheer greed and ambition of pioneering Victorian engineers operating in a time of paranoia, my latest effort at hitting the literary red carpet is about the paradigms and paradoxes of power in the Westminster blob of Britain’s politics.
In particular, my novel attempts to capture the strange moment we are in, of a politics achieving all of the following mildly depressing states: 1) the lowest trust levels in known political history; 2) a spike in political violence in a country where people are proud of our seeming civility (think Jo Cox, David Amess in the UK, or in the US, Republican hopeful, Nikki Haley, seeking secret service protection this week); 3) of a patriarchal work culture (specifically in and around Parliament) that is dominated by drinking, gossip, bullying, hierarchy; 4) of a media culture that demonises innocent people; 5) a spike in exposure to and support for conspiracy theories in large part thanks to the engine of the internet. Working pretty close to all this myself, I’ve heard a lot of stories from ex-staffers of all colours who’ve had some pretty arresting experiences.
So what I am trying to do through fiction is to bring that to life, to paint a picture from within the bubble, but also to charter a course through those murky waters, present readers with that reality and the mechanics of it (which is the slightly depressing bit), as well as to shine a light on the future (which ought to be the hopeful bit!).
I’m strongly of the view that many of those poisonous traits in our politics have numbered days, in particular, around the culture of drinking in Parliament, of the bullying and opaque relationships that pervade daily business in Westminster (some good journalism on Westminster culture here, here and here). Partly, I believe this because the internet and social media are increasing transparency around some of these issues, but also because the mood of the public appears to be shifting. What is made public now wasn’t necessarily being made public twenty or thirty years ago, and people don’t necessarily feel the same fear of speaking up - though, as my novel attempts to demonstrate, those fears are very legitimate and it requires immense bravery to do so.
As a writing exercise, it’s impossibly challenging to write with nuance. For me, writing something accurate has to capture all of the above while also addressing the following paradoxes:
MPs who can be the worst offenders can also be principled and care about the issues they choose to campaign on.
The same people who believe in or engage with conspiracy theories can be deeply human and sympathetic. Oftentimes, we paint them as psychologically unhinged, which may be justified (I’m no psychologist), but sometimes we forget that their reasons for doing so can be grounded in personal experiences - injustices, economic/financial hardship, loss, trauma etc. etc.
Parliament can be a cruel place to work because of the power dynamics and the culture, but beyond personality troubles, it has many structural employment problems as well - little or no HR support, little or no perks/attractions, it’s extremely low paid (yes, even as an MP - senior managers in the civil service are paid more than MPs), little or no provision for staff with mental health needs, or other complications. Those I know who’ve worked in Parliament describe what is, in employment terms, basically the wild west. Many MPs don’t have any experiences running offices, running their own teams, they think the only skills they need is having strong political opinions and not necessarily being a leader (I’m using that word intentionally).
The seriousness of the problems, from harassment to bullying to, in some cases, sexual assault contrasts heavily what can undeniably be the farce of parliament, of PR-politics, of the media circus, of the acting, the games and the comedic age of some traditions (even being a political junkie for fifteen years hasn’t blinded me to the school hall jeering and shouting from one side of the chamber to the other, the banging of tables during 1922 committee meetings, and the frankly terrible efforts at jokes during Prime Minister’s Questions).
My novel has multiple main characters, all with their own ambitions, conflicts, and journeys to go on. At its heart is a parliamentary staffer who is harassed by her boss and the moral, psychological and physical barriers she faces in responding to this. That in itself is, of course, a very serious subject and were it treated any other way, it wouldn’t do any justice to real victims of abuse/harassment. On the other hand, there is a character who’s quit his job in parliament to write movie scripts (I know someone who did exactly that), because the work and culture had driven them away; a character who is a germaphobe and has a fear of the outdoors, and pursues conspiracy theories online; a character who works for a charity in Westminster; the wife of the accused MP, who’s recently fallen pregnant.
So there are multiple layers to it, and therein lies both the challenge and the opportunity - to write something that truly captures the multidimensional nature of life in Westminster. While I near the end of the editing process, the biggest question I’m still battling with is whether I’ve written characters that are sufficiently multifaceted, and whether I’ve captured appropriately both the seriousness of the issue AND the farcical if-you-don’t-laugh-you’ll-cry nature of politics.
I’d be very interested to hear readers’ reflections on these issues and whether they think I’ve accurately captured them or whether I’m in my own world and talking nonsense. You can respond directly to this email to write to me personally, or use the comments feature on Substack to leave a comment. I have scattered throughout this piece some film photos I’ve recently developed from my time in Porto, keeping sane throughout the writing process.
If you’d welcome more non-fiction musings on my writing work and other topics, do holler!
