Soho Black - Christopher Fowler

...of a film promotion company. Soho is his home. He knows the area well, and he knows exactly what goes on there, during the day and at night. Well, the film industry is open 24 hours.

The problem is that he is a little too used to Soho. The general feeling you get is that he has grown tired of Soho, has seen too much of it, is bored with it. Most of Fowler’s other works are not rooted in a single spot, but have the freedom to move. ...
...to cover all aspects of Soho life within the novel. The end feeling is that he’s tried to be all things to all men, but has ended up as the proverbial “jack of all trades.” Master of none is entirely right. There are several stories, but none of them feel complete.

Fowler writes in his traditional short chapters, which normally serve to keep the pace of his novels high. It achieves the same effect here but because it is rare that ... more

We’ve had them all. The film of the book. The book of the film. The new edition of the book because it’s been made into a film so that you can cash in on that. So now, we have the novel set in the heart of the London film industry in Soho.

I’ve heard that the advice often given to aspiring writers is “write about what you know.” If that advice was given to Christopher Fowler, this was the result. He works in the film industry, as a director of a film promotion company. Soho is his home. He knows the area well, and he knows exactly what goes on there, during the day and at night. Well, the film industry is open 24 hours.

The problem is that he is a little too used to Soho. The general feeling you get is that he has grown tired of Soho, has seen too much of it, is bored with it. Most of Fowler’s other works are not rooted in a single spot, but have the freedom to move. Across the city in some cases, between worlds in another. This novel, on the other hand, is the literary equivalent of a factory-farmed chicken. You can feel it want to stretch its’ legs and run around freely, but it’s too hemmed in to move.

This is not so much a novel, more a collection of intertwined short stories involving characters from Soho. In fact, if this book were to be made into a film, it would probably have a similar feel to “Pulp Fiction”, where there are several little stories, with a main story overlaid and you cut between scenes from different people and then see how it all comes together towards the end.

The main story here involves Richard Tyler. He’s not really having a very good time of it at the moment. He’s working as a film executive in Soho, and he’s not really very good at it. He has a problem, you see. Honesty. He’s got a lot of it! He’s not really driven enough, either. He wants to see ideas become films, but he’s not prepared to take money from people who haven’t got a chance of having a successful film. His drive to see films succeed is over-running his own success.

Due to this, he’s just been sacked by his boss, and his wife has just left him. The reason his wife left? She was having an affair with his boss. Add to this a disabled son he feels guilty about putting into care, the recent death of his best, and only, friend in the film industry, and the constant use of cocaine, which has resulted in him being chased by unofficial debt collectors who are going to do nasty things to him if he doesn’t give them a lot of money by Friday.

What else can go wrong? Well, just the one thing. After taking some cocaine to calm his nerves, he finds himself so laid back he’s dead. OK, great. The End. Short book, fine, let’s go. But no. Wait. He’s dead, and yet he’s not. He’s aware that he’s dead, but he’s somehow still able to move, walk, and talk. After checking in a medical textbook, he figures that he has about 48 hours to accomplish everything he wants to, and nothing can hurt him since, after all, he’s dead. What’s the worst that can happen now? Suddenly Richard has the drive he needs and the plans he wants to push through, and sets about doing so. His death has given him a new lease of life.

Running alongside and throughout this story is that of Imago. No, it’s not a person; it’s a new drug. A chap called Malcolm Cotton has found a way of making a new “natural” drug from butterflies. Unfortunately for him, this knowledge has got him killed, but not before he’s passed along his stock to a friend, and sold some of it on. Sadly for his customers, the result of taking the drug is to induce swift and sever psychosis, and most of the people who have taken it have killed themselves in fairly spectacular fashion, often taking a few other people along with them. As if to indicate the intertwining of people’s lives in Soho, Cotton’s friend is a guy called Lucas – who works as a runner at Richard Tyler’s film company.

The murder of Malcolm Cotton means that detectives Bryant and May become involved, trying to trace the drug, and work out who killed him. Of course, while they’re trying to find this out, more people take the drug and death happens all around them. In fact, about the only death that they’re not interested in is Richard’s. Regular readers of Fowler will recognise these names. Detectives Bryant and May are the only two characters who appear in more then one of his novels, along with Sergeant Longbright, who assists them.

Mixed in with this is the story of Judy, who is caught under, and trapped by the spell of nightclub owner Midas Blake, someone the police suspect of killing Cotton. He employs the two debt collectors, Waldorf and One Eighty, who are chasing Richard for his debts, as well as Glory, Soho’s best stripper. There are stories of films and edits, deals and drugs.

The ending, sadly, leaves me cold. There’s a twist towards the end which asks more questions than it answers, and doesn’t really fit in with what has gone before. Endings have never been Fowler’s strong point anyway, but this novel doesn’t really end. It just stops. You get to the last page to find that the novel is over, but it hasn’t really finished. It’s highly disappointing.

It’s apparent that Fowler is attempting to cover all aspects of Soho life within the novel. The end feeling is that he’s tried to be all things to all men, but has ended up as the proverbial “jack of all trades.” Master of none is entirely right. There are several stories, but none of them feel complete.

Fowler writes in his traditional short chapters, which normally serve to keep the pace of his novels high. It achieves the same effect here but because it is rare that two chapters are on the same character’s part of the story, the end result is confusion, rather than satisfaction. You end up being turned around more often the one a fairground ride. The feeling of nausea isn’t quite there, but the sense of disorientation is.

In the end, this novel leaves you with a few questions which, unfortunately, don’t relate to the plot. You’re not really all that bothered about what happens next. What you do wonder is this: of all the characters, has Fowler based any of them on himself, and if so, which one. My money’s on Berry, Richard’s boss. Then there’s the cover. There are a few photos of people who, I assume, are meant to be characters from the book. There’s some entertainment to be had by trying to work out which one is which. I think I’ve got Glory, Berry and Midas Blake pegged, but I’m not sure about the others.

Thirdly, you wonder if this was originally intended as a film script. It doesn’t really work as a novel as there’s very little character development. It’s just a week in Soho. However, you can see it working as a film, as it has the elements it would need. It’s fairly short, so everything would fit in, there’s plenty going on. There’s murder, drugs, the dead coming to life, and a woman who takes her clothes off for a living. It does feel like a book that would work better on the screen – and I say this as someone who generally disapproves of film versions of novels. You can’t believe that all this would go on in a week in Soho, which is another reason it would be a gripping film – the suspension of disbelief it requires for the normal person. If you work in the film industry, it probably hits too close to home to be attractive anyway.

One thing about this novel has captivated me from the start, and will remain with me for a long time. That title. “Soho Black.” It’s great. Fair enough, I’m someone who likes black as a colour, and I’m a Londoner anyway, so I know Soho fairly well, if not intimately, and I do know someone who works in Soho’s film industry. But that title caught my attention and hasn’t let it go and remains with me long after any details of the plot have faded from my memory. It may not have made a great read, but it does make for a great user name.

In London at least, this sees to be the most readily available of all Fowler’s novels, being one of the few you can find relatively easily on the shelves of the high-street bookshops. I guess this may explain why he’s not as popular as he deserves to be. If this is the starting point for your reading of Fowler’s novels, you’re not likely to go searching for another in a hurry. It’s a great pity, as he’s a very good writer, who deserves far more attention then he seems to get.

The novel is available in the shops for £8.99, in a strange kind of paperback edition with an extra dust cover on it which, to be honest, just gets in the way. Amazon lists the regular price as being £6.99, but has it available to order for £5.59. This doesn’t look too bad, except that they have most of Fowler’s novels available for £5.59 and, generally speaking, you’d be better off spending your money there. If you want a recommendation, start where I did, with “Psychoville” 

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