In the tradition of literary lowlifes and lushes as conceived by Charles Bukowski or Jean Rhys, Keshed is a story about an alcoholic, with a distinctive 21st-century, northern English working-class setting. Formally inventive, the ‘now’ sections of the novel are not sentences but strings of words, effective and short: ‘Rancid liquid squirting chin soggy torso peristaltic rush rapid.’ One such section opens the book, setting the uncompromising tone.
The protagonist, Sean (‘He was pissed when I met him and he hasn’t changed’), a bright, charismatic lad from an unnamed small Yorkshire town, has been to university in Manchester where he drank heavily. He then moved back home, and we meet him working as a plasterer, living to get smashed. This early part includes plenty of characteristic west Yorkshire speech – ‘Summart ter look forward ter’ – and a little levity amid the depravity.
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